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Abstract: Hydrogel microparticles containing synthetic opal structures via closely packed nanoparticles hold significant potential for reagentless detection in biosensing, medical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring. Yet there exist technical hurdles in reliable, simple, and readily tunable fabrication of such microparticles. This thesis examines critical parameters in the robust fabrication... read moreand characterization of opal structured hydrogel microparticles via a two-step micromolding technique. Parameters examined include evaporation rate, surfactant addition, polystyrene bead size, and various polymer systems toward uniform and intense color. I demonstrated these microparticles display uniform and intense color when fabricated with poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate. Scanning electron micrographs and Bragg Equation analysis show the opal layer packing influences microparticle color, indicating uniform color arises from minimizing simple cubic packing. The studies represent significant progress towards consistent and robust fabrication of these microparticles which have considerable potential in biosensing applications without using optical reagents or separate tags for inexpensive detection of multiple variables.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2017.
Submitted to the Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Advisor: Hyunmin Yi.
Committee: Qiaobing Xu, and Ayse Asatekin.
Keyword: Chemical engineering.read less
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