Microscale Polymer Bottles Corked with a Phase-Change Material for Temperature-Controlled Release

Conventional forms of drug administration generally rely on pills, eye drops, ointments, and intravenous solutions. Recently, a number of novel drug delivery approaches have been developed. These approaches include drug modification by chemical means, drug entrapment in small vesicles that are injected into the bloodstream, and drug entrapment within pumps or polymeric materials that are placed in desired bodily compartments (for example, the eye or beneath the skin). These techniques have already led to delivery systems that improve human health, and continued research may revolutionize the way many drugs are delivered.

Colloidal particles with hollow interiors play important roles in microencapsulation-a process that has found widespread use in applications such as controlled release of drugs, cosmetics, inks, pigments or chemical reagents; protection of biologically active species; and removal of pollutants. The hollow particles are most commonly prepared by coating the surfaces of colloidal templates with thin layers of the desired material (or its precursor), followed by selective removal of the templates by means of calcination or chemical etching. This simple and straightforward approach works for a variety of materials that include polymers, ceramics, composites and metals. For polymers, methods such as emulsion polymerization, phase separation, crosslinking of micelles and self-assembly have also been demonstrated for generating hollow structures. However, diffusion through these closed shells with pores <10 nm is often a slow process. To solve this problem, macroporous capsules have been fabricated by organizing colloids around liquid droplets to form colloidosomes or by controlling the mixing of liquid droplets. Here we report the preparation of another class of macroporous capsules-polymer shells with controllable holes in their surfaces. After loading of functional materials, the holes can be closed by means of thermal annealing or solvent treatment.