New sight at the organization of layers of multilayer polyelectrolyte microcapsules

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 14040 - 7
• Main Authors: Musin, Egor V., Kim, Aleksandr L., Dubrovskii, Alexey V., Tikhonenko, Sergey A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 07.07.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/57; 639/301; 639/925; Calcium carbonate; Humanities and Social Sciences; Microcapsules; multidisciplinary; Polyallylamine; Polyelectrolytes; Proteins; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Surface charge
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93565-2

In this work, the mutual arrangement of polyelectrolytes of multilayer polyelectrolyte microcapsules (with layers—[PAH/PSS] 3 PAH) by determination of the dissociation level of polyallylamine (PAH) from the surface of a polyelectrolyte microcapsules (PMC) of various types was studied: PMC with a dissolved CaCO 3 core after preparation, PMC with an undissolved CaCO 3 core and PMC with an encapsulated protein. It was concluded that the polyelectrolyte layers are mixed in the entire shell of the capsules with a dissolved CaCO 3 core. In the case of the PMC with an undissolved CaCO 3 core, such mixing of polyelectrolyte layers does not occur. That fact allows us to conclude that the mixing of polyelectrolytes layers mixing at the stage of dissolution of CaCO 3 core. The PMC with encapsulated protein has partial mixing of polyelectrolytes layers. That phenomenon may be due to the fact that seven-layered protein-containing microcapsules already have a dense and well-formed shell. The obtained data correlate with the data on the study of the surface charge of microcapsules.