Fabricating High-viscosity Droplets using Microfluidic Capillary Device with Phase-inversion Co-flow Structure

The generation of monodisperse droplets with high viscosity has always been a challenge in droplet microfluidics. Here, we demonstrate a phase-inversion ...

University of Science and Technology Beijing

Lubrication plays a crucial role in reducing friction for transporting heavy objects, from moving a 60-ton statue in ancient Egypt to relocating a 15,000-ton building in modern society. Although in China spoked wheels appeared ca. 1500 B.C., in the 15th and 16th centuries sliding sledges were still used in transporting huge stones to the Forbidden City in Beijing. We show that an ice lubrication technique of water-lubricated wood-on-ice sliding was used instead of the common ancient approaches, such as wood-on-wood sliding or the use of log rollers. The technique took full advantage of the natural properties of ice, such as sufficient hardness, flatness, and low friction with a water film. This ice-assisted movement is more efficient for such heavy-load and low-speed transportation necessary for the stones of the Forbidden City. The transportation of the huge stones provides an early example of ice lubrication and complements current studies of the high-speed regime relevant to competitive ice sports. 

Ice lubrication for moving heavy stones to the Forbidden City in 15th- and 16th-century China.

A technology is presented to fabricate a microfluidic chip in which the microchannels and the microelectrodes of sensors are integrated directly into the copper sheet on a printed circuit board. Then, we demonstrate an application of the generation of oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsion droplets on this microfluidic chip driven by a USB interface, and the droplet size is detected by the microelectrodes on the downstream microchannel. The integration of the microfluidic chip is improved by the direct connection of the channels to the microelectrodes of the driving unit and of the sensors on the same substrate, and it is a promising way to integrate microfluidics into a more complex micro electrical-mechanical system (MEMS). 

USB-driven microfluidic chips on printed circuit boards.

A diffusion-controlled method is presented to study the growth of bubbles on a solid surface. The bubbles are nucleated spontaneously on a hydrophobic smooth surface in response to a sudden pressure reduction and then grow with an expanding contact line. The evolution of the bubbles in the early stage is found to grow with a constant bubble radius and a decreasing contact angle, while the bubbles continue their growth with a constant contact angle and an increasing bubble radius after the contact angle reaches its equilibrium value. A total variation of about 60° of the contact angle is observed during the growth of the bubbles with the size scale of 10-100 μm in radius. The growing process is described by the diffusion theory with the validation of the growth constant. 

Growth of bubbles on a solid surface in response to a pressure reduction.

We present the manipulation of oil, organic and gaseous chemicals by electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) technology using aqueous-shell compound drops. We demonstrate that the transport and coalescence of viscous oil drops, the reaction of bromine with styrene in benzene solution, and the reaction of red blood cells with carbon monoxide bubbles can be accomplished using this method. 

Electrowetting-on-dielectrics for manipulation of oil drops and gas bubbles in aqueous-shell compound drops.

Porous carbon particles have been widely used in many areas including energy storage. Production of carbon microspheres in an efficient, controlled, and low-cost manner, however, is challenging. Here, we demonstrate a microfluidic approach to generate porous carbon particles using inexpensive precursors and show that the size of the particle and pores can be tuned by adjusting the deionized (DI) water content in droplets and preheating temperature. The developed strategy offers an effective approach to control the production of porous carbon spheres with a well-defined diameter, narrow size distribution and pore size. 

Microfluidic production of porous carbon spheres with tunable size and pores.

Drag reduction was found in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels when the flow was pulled by depressurization at the inlet, and it was attributed to the formation of the bubbles on the PDMS surface. The formed bubbles were examined by atomic force microscopy (AFM), and the resultant effective slip length was measured by microparticle image velocimetry (μPIV). The drag reduction was found to decrease as the bubbles grew and detached from the surface, causing a pulsatile flow in the microchannel.

Drag Reduction by Bubble-Covered Surfaces Found in PDMS Microchannel through Depressurization.

Emulsions-liquid droplets dispersed in another immiscible liquid-are widely used in a broad spectrum of applications, including food, personal care, agrochemical, and pharmaceutical products. Emulsions are also commonly present in natural crude oil, hampering the production and quality of petroleum fuels. The stability of emulsions plays a crucial role in their applications, but controlling the stability without external driving forces has been proven to be difficult. Here we show how heterogeneous surface wettability can alter the stability and dynamics of oil-in-water emulsions, generated by a co-flow microfluidic device. We designed a useful methodology that can modify a micro-capillary of desired heterogeneous wettability (e.g., alternating hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions) without changing the hydraulic diameter. We subsequently investigated the effects of flow rates and heterogeneous wettability on the emulsion morphology and motion. The experimental data revealed a universal critical timescale of advective emulsions, above which the microfluidic emulsions remain stable and intact, whereas below they become adhesive or inverse. A simple theoretical model based on a force balance can be used to explain this critical transition of emulsion dynamics, depending on the droplet size and the Capillary number-the ratio of viscous to surface effects. These results give insight into how to control the stability and dynamics of emulsions in microfluidics with flow velocity and different wettability.

Altering Emulsion Stability with Heterogeneous Surface Wettability.

Mass-transfer-induced multistep phase separation was found in emulsion droplets. The agent system consists of a monomer (ethoxylated trimethylolpropane triacrylate, ETPTA), an oligomer (polyethylene glycol diacrylate, PEGDA 700), and water. The PEGDA in the separated layers offered partial miscibility of all the components throughout the multistep phase-separation procedure, which was terminated by the depletion of PEGDA in the outermost layer. The number of separated portions was determined by the initial PEGDA content, and the initial droplet size influenced the mass-transfer process and consequently determined the sizes of the separated layers. The resultant multilayered emulsions were demonstrated to offer an orderly temperature-responsive release of the inner cores. Moreover, the emulsion droplets can be readily solidified into onionlike microspheres by ultraviolet light curing, providing a new strategy in designing particle structures. 

Mass-Transfer-Induced Multistep Phase Separation in Emulsion Droplets: Toward Self-Assembly Multilayered Emulsions and Onionlike Microspheres.

Fluids containing high concentration polymers, sols, nanoparticles, etc., usually have high viscosities, and high-viscosity fluids are difficult to be encapsulated into uniform droplets. Here we report a surface-controlled breakup method to generate droplets directly from various aqueous and nonaqueous fluids with viscosities of 1.0 to 11.9 Pa s and a dispersed-to-continuous viscosity ratio up to 1000, whereas the volume fraction of droplets up to 50% can be achieved. It provides a straightforward method to encapsulate high viscosity fluids, in a well-controlled manner in the rapid developing droplet-based applications, including materials synthesis, drug delivery, cell assay, bioengineering, etc.

Microfluidic Generation of High-Viscosity Droplets by Surface-Controlled Breakup of Segment Flow.

Margination of stiffened red blood cells has been implicated in many vascular diseases. Here, we report the margination of stiffened RBCs in vivo, and reveal the crucial role of the vessel geometry in the margination by calculations when the blood is seen as viscoelastic fluid. The vessel-geometry-regulated margination is then confirmed by in vitro experiments in microfluidic devices, and it establishes new insights to cell sorting technology and artificial blood vessel fabrication.

Jiang Li

School of Mechanical Engineering

University of Science and Technology Beijing

Fabricating High-viscosity Droplets using Microfluidic Capillary Device with Phase-inversion Co-flow Structure

Jiang Li

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}School of Mechanical Engineering

University of Science and Technology Beijing

Fabricating High-viscosity Droplets using Microfluidic Capillary Device with Phase-inversion Co-flow Structure

School of Mechanical Engineering