Light-activated: These nylon capsules, filled with chemical reactants and carbon nanotubes, heat up and burst when irradiated with a laser.
Credit: Stefan Pastine and David Okawa
New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in materials--and what they mean.
Reactions on Demand
Microcapsules isolate reactants until a laser bursts the bubble
Source: "Chemicals on Demand with Phototriggerable Microcapsules"
Jean M.J. Fréchet et al.
Journal of the American Chemical Society 131: 13586-13587
Results: Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, enclosed highly reactive chemicals in polymer microcapsules. They showed that the capsules can be burst using light from a laser, allowing the chemicals to escape and react with each other to form a desired product.
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