MULTIPHASE MICROFLUIDIC FABRICATION OF POLYMERIC MICRO-CONTAINERS FOR BIO-ENCAPSULATION

This thesis presents microfluidic techniques for fabrication of polymeric micro-containers for different encapsulation applications. The literature review focuses on the various aspects of polymeric micro-containers, multiphase microfluidics and interaction between these two fields. In the first work, microfluidic encapsulation technique for fabrication of polymeric micro-containers prepared from the template of hydrogel material was presented. The presented polyethylene glycol microbeads were capable of encapsulating biomolecules and performing glucose assay. In the second work, microfluidic encapsulation technique for fabrication of polymeric micro-containers with the template of organic phase was demonstrated using a novel approach termed ¿Microfluidic Pinball¿. The third work focused on microfluidic encapsulation approach to directly encapsulate template of aqueous droplets containing biomolecules using Reverse phase layer-by-layer deposition. The model protein system of BSA was encapsulated with two layers of polyelectrolytes using novel geometry in the preliminary experiments. The final chapter consists of conclusion and future works.

Author dc:creator

• KANTAK CHAITANYA SUDHIR

• Microfluidics, Micro-containers, Droplets, Bio-encapsulation, Multiphase, Polyelectrolytes