Water and Oil Insoluble PEGDA-Based Microcapsule: Biocompatible and Multicomponent Encapsulation

Despite the recent development in various materials capable of encapsulating biomolecules, there exist limited reports on multicomponent encapsulation in biocompatible microcapsules. In this letter, we utilize the molecular weight dependent solubility of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) and droplet microfluidics to achieve direct encapsulation of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic cargoes in PEG microcapsules. By using PEGDA 250 as the middle phase, we demonstrate that these PEGDA-based microcapsules allow simultaneous encapsulation of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic cargoes. We further confirm the validity of this approach by demonstrating that complex biomolecule such as protein can be effectively encapsulated within these PEGDA-based microcapsules.