Controllable porous polymer particles generated by electrospraying.

In this paper, an electrospraying technique was applied to prepare polycaprolactone (PCL) polymer particles with a different microstructure. The PCL particles can be controlled to have a porous microstructure by tailoring the evaporation of solvents during the electrospraying process. The effect of various concentrations on the morphology and microstructure of PCL particles was investigated. The experiment has demonstrated the versatile capability of the electrohydrodynamic atomization process for preparing polymer PCL porous particles and fibers. The thermally induced and evaporation-induced phase separations are proposed as the main mechanisms for the porous microstructure formation. The results demonstrate that the electrospraying method is a simple, innovative and cost-effective method for preparing polymer particles with controllable microstructures.