Capillary aggregate is one of the morphologies that appear in ternary mixtures of particles
and two immiscible fluids. Capillary aggregates appear when two conditions are satisfied: the
particles are fully-wetted by one of the two liquid phases, and furthermore, the wetting fluid
has a volume fraction that is roughly equal to the particle volume fraction. Under these
conditions, the wetting fluid creates highly compact particle aggregates called capillary
aggregates. Recent research suggests that capillary aggregates can stick to one another to
create a network in which capillary aggregates act as building blocks.
The aim of this study is to develop a macro-porous material from sintering capillary
aggregate networks. In this study, morphologies of ternary mixtures in which the continuous
phase is ethylene glycol, the wetting phase is light mineral oil and the solid phase is
hydrophobic particles of low melting temperature polymer were studied. Capillary aggregate
networks were prepared by suitable mixing methods, and then the mixtures were sintered to
obtain macro-porous materials. Such macro-porous materials may be used as scaffolds for
cells growth.iv
This thesis reported the implementation of capillary aggregate networks and the procedures
of sintering and washing process. The effects of composition of ternary mixtures on porosity,
pore sizes and number of aggregates were studied.
This study demonstrates that by sintering capillary aggregate networks, we can obtain high
porosity materials with low particle loading, and obtain large pore sizes without using
different size particles. Moreover, result shows that cells can grow well in the macro-porous
materials
