Issue 18, 2012

High-volume production of single and compound emulsions in a microfluidic parallelization arrangement coupled with coaxial annular world-to-chip interfaces

Abstract

This study describes a microfluidic platform with coaxial annular world-to-chip interfaces for high-throughput production of single and compound emulsion droplets, having controlled sizes and internal compositions. The production module consists of two distinct elements: a planar square chip on which many copies of a microfluidic droplet generator (MFDG) are arranged circularly, and a cubic supporting module with coaxial annular channels for supplying fluids evenly to the inlets of the mounted chip, assembled from blocks with cylinders and holes. Three-dimensional flow was simulated to evaluate the distribution of flow velocity in the coaxial multiple annular channels. By coupling a 1.5 cm × 1.5 cm microfluidic chip with parallelized 144 MFDGs and a supporting module with two annular channels, for example, we could produce simple oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion droplets having a mean diameter of 90.7 μm and a coefficient of variation (CV) of 2.2% at a throughput of 180.0 mL h−1. Furthermore, we successfully demonstrated high-throughput production of Janus droplets, double emulsions and triple emulsions, by coupling 1.5 cm × 1.5 cm – 4.5 cm × 4.5 cm microfluidic chips with parallelized 32–128 MFDGs of various geometries and supporting modules with 3–4 annular channels.

Graphical abstract: High-volume production of single and compound emulsions in a microfluidic parallelization arrangement coupled with coaxial annular world-to-chip interfaces

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
10 Mar 2012
Accepted
29 May 2012
First published
13 Jun 2012

Lab Chip, 2012,12, 3426-3435

High-volume production of single and compound emulsions in a microfluidic parallelization arrangement coupled with coaxial annular world-to-chip interfaces

T. Nisisako, T. Ando and T. Hatsuzawa, Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 3426 DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40245A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements