Reverse microemulsion polymerization method

De, T.K. and Hoffman, A.S. (2001) A reverse microemulsion polymerization method for preparation of bioadhesive polyacrylic acid nanoparticles for mucosal drug deliv. Loading and release of Timolol Maleate. Art. Cells, Blood Subst. Immob. Biotech., 29, 31-46. 

Reverse microemulsion polymerization method is used in a variety of applications such as to produce the nanotubes (Jang and Yoon, 2013) and quantum dots [Zhang and Fan, 2012). However, it is an emerging method of MIP synthesis. 

PEDOT conductive nanofibers. PEDOT nanotubes produced by reverse microemulsion polymerization exhibit x values as high as 250 S cm . Nanofibers of PEDOT/PSS can be produced by the molecular combing method (Section 3.3.2). These fibers are very thin, with diameters well below... 

In a reverse microemulsion, the hydrolysis and polymerization of the silicate precursor occur in the water droplet, therefore, to dope dyes in the silica nanoparticles they must be water soluble. However, a number of organic dye molecules are hydrophobic, requiring modifications prior to doping. Several methods are available to link a hydrophobic dye molecule to a water soluble group. A simple and effective example is to link a hydrophilic dextran to the dye molecules [8]. This modification can greatly enhance the water solubility of hydrophobic dye molecules, but will increase the cost of resultant DDSNs. 

It should be noted that the synthetic conditions required to form a specific type of polymer structure are not necessarily compatible with the conditions required for optimal imprinting of the template. All of the methods however, have utility in at least one area of imprinting and each of them was developed to suit specific target and application. Few polymerization methods (i.e., bulk, precipitation, suspension and reverse microemulsion) along with their pros and cons are presented in the following sections. 

Liquid-liquid methods include solvent extraction with immiscible liquid-liquid systems in which a suitable ligand is dissolved in an organic phase and contacted with a metal ion containing an aqueous phase and liquid membranes. Separations can also be achieved with pseudo-phase systems such as micelles, microemulsions, and vesicles. Such separations can be solid-liquid or liquid-liquid and include separations with normal- and reversed-phase silica, and polymeric supports where the mobile phase contains the organized molecular assembly (OMA) of micelles, microemulsions, or vesicles. Separation of metal ions using the pseudo-phase systems is stiU in its infancy and a brief account will be provided here. 

Another immobilization technique proposed is nanoentrapment into NPs. In this method, a water-in-oil microemulsion system is used for the fabrication of NPs and for the dispersion of enzyme. This procedure leads to the creation of discrete NPs through polymerization in the water phase or on the interface, in which the enzyme is dispersed [195, 196], One of the challenges of this approach is the difficulty in controlling the size of reverse micelles, as well as the number of enzyme molecules within each reverse micelle, which will directly affect the final properties of enzyme-entrapped nanoparticles [6],... 

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