• Seiffert, S.: Non-Spherical Soft Supraparticles from Microgel Building Blocks. Macromolecular Rapid Communications 33 (2012), p. 1286-1293

10.1002/marc.201200175

Abstract:
Microgel particles can be fabricated with great control by droplet-based microfluidics; however, to this end, their shape is intrinsically limited to be spherical. Existing approaches to circumvent this limitation rely on the rapid interception of transient non-spherical preparticle shapes, greatly limiting their versatility. This paper presents a facile microfl uidic approach that overcomes this limitation. The method utilizes the injection of scaffolding microgel particles into droplets that have insuffi cient volumes to hostthe microgels in a spherical shell. As a result, the drops adoptnon-spherical equilibrium shapes that serve to template nonsphericalsoft supraparticles by slow and gentle chemical reactions.