I have been reading about the emulsification-diffusion method for nanoparticles synthesis, and, in some articles, they say this: "The encapsulating polymer is dissolved in a partially water-soluble solvent, and saturated with water to ensure the initial thermodynamic equilibrium of both liquids.", but I don't know the exact process of this:
May I aggregate water to this organic solution? How many mL of water may I add it? I'm using CHCl3 to dissolve the polymer.
Will you post the link of the article, then we can have a clear view on what they have tried. Possibly they might have tried the organic solvents partially miscible with water. They would have saturated with water level it can miscible for matrix solution preparation, followed by addition into stabilizer/continuous phase to prepare a emulsion.
Hi Tatiana
What i have understood from that article is, As they have mentioned, this is the process carried to maintain the droplet size(which will form particles). Initially they are saturating the organic phase(EA) with water and water with organic phase(EA)(i.e till their miscibility capacity). This can be organic phase:aq phase in ratio of 1:1 (for example 10 ml of organic phase(mixture of 9.7ml EA and .3ml water) and 10 ml of aq solvent(mixture of 9.17ml of water and .83ml of EA). They mixing this two together to form an emulsion. Then adding the water(not saturated with EA)(4 times of emulsion volume - can be 80 ml) to dilute the aqueous phase which pulls the EA from the polymeric droplets to make up the saturation level of EA in water(total continuous phase). This will precipitate the capsules as particulates immediately. finally the EA is removed from the aq phase under reduced pressure.
hope you got it. :)
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