Descripción

Because of its importance in different areas of industry such as agriculture, pharmaceutics
medicine and cosmetics there is an extensive research going on the field of encapsulation1
where organic as well as inorganic capsules of different sizes have been prepared and
investigated.1,2 Inorganic capsules offer some advantages comparing to the organic shells.
They have very good stability at high temperatures as well as against chemicals, they show
higher mechanical strength and not swelling in organic solvents compared to most organic
and polymeric shells.2,3
In the current study silica microcapsules with diameters in 0.1~100μm range containing
organic compounds of different viscosities were synthesized following a core/shell based in
situ microencapsulation method via a sol-gel route1. The viscosity of the organic compounds
encapsulated in the current study ranged between 3 cP to 6000 cP and in all cases, even in the
highest viscosity one, microcapsules containing the organic material have been obtained. It
has been observed that the viscosity of the compound encapsulated has an effect in the type of
shell obtained.