In situ measurements of polymer micellization kinetics with millisecond temporal resolution
Open accessAbstract
Utilizing synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) integrated with a microfluidic device, micellization kinetics of a diblock co-polymer, poly(ethylene glycol)- b -poly(caprolactone), was measured in situ with millisecond temporal and micrometer spatial resolution. The evolutionary regimes of polymer micellization, nucleation, fusion, and insertion were directly observed. The five-inlet microfluidic device provided steady continuous mixing of the polymer solution and the antisolvent. The solvent replacement was mainly dominated by lateral diffusion across the hydrodynamically focused central layer, whose thickness could be precisely designed and manipulated from the mass balance of the partitioning streams. Knowing the micellization kinetics of the polymers is essential for the design and optimization of self-assembled polymeric nanostructures. The technique of integrating SAXS with microfluidic devices can be translatable to other systems for a breadth of applications.
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Synchrotron X-ray experiments allow following the kinetics of micellization by time-resolved SAXS (Tr-SAXS) in a time window spanning the millisecond to the second range.
“Moreover, synchrotron X-ray experiments allow to follow the kinetics of micellization by means of time resolved SAXS (Tr-SAXS) in a time window spanning the millisecond to the second range [214].”
From Polymeric micelles in drug delivery: An insight of the techniques for their characterization and assessment in biorelevant conditions (2021) · cites this paper as [214]
The Introduction and Results and discussions describe synchrotron time-resolved SAXS measurements of micellization with millisecond temporal resolution. But the Results and discussions specify a total experimental time window of 600 ms, so this study does not establish a window extending into the seconds range; the 1 s exposure reported in Materials and Methods is an acquisition time, not the micellization time window. Our copy provides section labels but no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Kalkowski, J., Liu, C., Leon-Plata, P., Szymusiak, M., Zhang, P., Irving, T., Shang, W., Bilsel, O., & Liu, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607, United States
- Illinois Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US)
- Corresponding author
- Liu, Ying
- Venue
- Macromolecules
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2019-04-15
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 3151-3157
- ISSN
- 0024-9297 (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5835
- PMC
- PMC6777845
- OpenAlex
- W2939300814
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Macromolecules (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI 1350731)
- Division of Biological Infrastructure (1353942)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Block Copolymer Self-Assembly
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Organic Chemistry › Advanced Polymer Synthesis and Characterization
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Organic Chemistry › Surfactants and Colloidal Systems
- Keywords
- diblock copolymers, microfluidic mixing, antisolvent addition, nucleation, micelle fusion, lateral diffusion, self-assembled nanostructures, in situ SAXS
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