The use of water-soluble polyNIPAM nanoparticles as core templates for making capsules offers significant advantages over conventional core materials which need extra efforts for removal. In this work, a seeded semicontinuous heterophase polymerisation was applied to fabricate fully water-disintegrable polyNIPAM core materials. This novel core template could be easily and completely removed via disintegration and dissolution in water at room temperature, in contrast to the cores made via conventional method which had limited water solubility and at best could produce semi-hollow capsules. The advantage of the suggested one-pot method is more pronounced if capsules with thicker shells are sought. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.