Hydrophilic and Double Hydrophilic/Hydrophobic Microcapsules using a Single, Thermally Responsive, Self-Sorting Dispersant

Encapsulating and storing hydrophilic payloads are still challenging nowadays. Here, a simple pathway is described to generate different water-filled microcapsule dispersions. We carefully chose a unique poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) dispersant that is able to stabilize and cover both direct and inverse interfaces. Single hollow capsules consisting of precipitated PVA shells were first prepared in one pot. Cargo release was shown to vary from fast kinetics (pristine microcapsules) to a diffusion-controlled one (cross-linked microcapsules) after an initial burst. We then describe an extremely easy process to generate double microcapsules, the complexity of which was visualized with different fluorescent markers.