Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Buoyant Particle-Stabilized Core-Shell Micro-Capsules

This research investigates the creation of buoyant hard-shelled microcapsules by scaling glass capillary microfluidics to the millimeter scale. Hollow shells may be generated using a flow-focusing technique with a colloidal solution of silica nanoparticles in toluene. The feasibility of buoyant microcapsules is investigated using numerical estimations of the strength and stresses of different microcapsule variants that may be produced using these methods. Agreement between these computations and experimental results will be verified. Adapting micro-scale materials and techniques to larger devices also requires the application of techniques not typical to microfluidics.