Polymeric nanocapsules containing nematic LCs as hydrophobes in miniemulsion polymerization

The distinct polymeric nanocapsule hybrid- structures consisting of LCs in the core and RMMA or polystyrene in the Corona domain were prepared by one-step miniemulsion polymerization. Nernatic LCs (.4'-pentyl-4-biphenylcarbonitrile and 4-heptyloxy-4-biphenylcarbonitrile) were especially adopted as hydrophobes that can suppress Ostwald ripening and had an important role to stabilize the miniemulsion droplets and control the size distributions of the latexes. The polymeric nanocapsule structures with narrow size distributions were confirmed by TEM and DLS measurements.