A general and versatile strategy to prepare melamine-formaldehyde (MF) microcapsules encapsulating oil-based fragrances by combining solvent evaporation and

in situ

polymerization was proposed in this work. The oil-based fragrance was pre-encapsulated by an inner polyacrylate membrane

via

solvent evaporation

followed by

in situ

polymerization of MF precondensates as an outer shell. The polyacrylate membrane is used as an intermediate bridging layer to stabilize the oil-based fragrance

and to provide driving forces for

in situ

polymerization of MF precondensates through electrostatic attractions between carboxyl groups and ammonium ions. It was demonstrated that MF microcapsules containing clove oil were prepared successfully. The amount and the composition of the intermediate polyacrylate bridging layer were critical. Smooth and sphere-shaped MF-clove oil microcapsules were prepared when the weight ratio of polyacrylate to clove oil was over 60 wt% and the concentration of acrylic acid (AA) increased to 10 wt% in polyacrylate. In addition

MF microcapsules containing sunflower oil and hexyl salicylate were prepared by using this

method. The work suggests that this new approach can be potentially used to encapsulate various core materials

tuning the shell properties of microcapsules such as thickness

mechanical strength and release properties.