Inorganic and hybrid hollow spheres by coating of microcapsules as templates

Microcapsules containing tetradecane as core and an amino resin as wall material were synthesised and used as templates for the production of micro hollow spheres. That way, the prepared microcapsules have been mineralised with titania by thermal hydrolysis of titanyl sulphate and subsequently transformed into inorganic and organic/inorganic hybrid hollow spheres. Laser diffraction studies after the different process steps show that the particle size remains constant. This means that control of the size of the hollow spheres is achieved by controlling the droplet size of the emulsion entering the microencapsulation process.