Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Encapsulation is critical to various engineering applications in pharma/nutraceuticals, agriculture, food processing, and personal care. Successful encapsulation needs one material or a mixture of materials ("core") to be coated with or covered within another material ("shell") wherein the core is safeguarded from an aggressive environment (e.g., moisture/heat/oxidation) by the shell or is protected until it reaches the target environment when the shell dissolves/ruptures to release the inside core. Traditionally, encapsulation processes have a restrictive core-shell portfolio, limited throughput, and require energy-intensive infrastructure. Recently, my research group has invented an impact-driven, simple, ultrafast, and low-cost method of liquid-liquid encapsulation technology for stably encapsulating a liquid core material with another thin liquid film (floating on a host liquid bath) utilizing the fundamental of thermodynamics. Based on this development, the proposed research program will address some of the existing challenges around this liquid-liquid encapsulation, such as what happens when the liquid core impinges on the floating shell layer, how to characterize a stable encapsulated core, how we can develop strategies to release the core on demand under different physicochemical conditions. To address these challenges, we need to (O1) understand the interfacial dynamics, (O2) characterize the stability, and (O3) develop a controlled release strategy. These will be achieved by performing in-depth experimental and numerical studies that would involve high-speed imaging of the core drop interaction with the interfacial shell layer, reconstruction of the shell layer profile, use of different shell materials and characterizing them under cured state using advanced microscopy tools and deciphering the wetting signature of the encapsulated core using laser-based measurement techniques and force-based measurement system. Finally, we will develop a platform for the controlled release of the core using magnetic and demonstrate the slow dissolution of the shell layer in the presence of a pH-sensitive host liquid bath. This will help us to develop a new understanding of the interactions of encapsulated core drops inside a continuous liquid phase in terms of its wetting and adhesion signatures, how the dynamics of three liquid phases (core, shell, host bath) play during this complex impact-driven encapsulation process, and finally development of innovative on-demand release platform for encapsulated drops. Perhaps the most significant impact will come from 15 trainees who would work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary environment and be trained in different physics, materials, and engineering aspects within a single research program. It will equip them with the skills they need to become leaders in the Canadian industry (pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, microfluidics, and coatings) and academia and train future generations of Canadians.