Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels
Droplet microfluidics enables the generation of highly uniform emulsions with excellent stability, precise control over droplet volume, and morphology, which offer superior platforms over conventional technologies for material synthesis and biological assays. However, it remains a challenge to scale...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2019-09-01
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| Series: | Micromachines |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/10/9/592 |
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| author | Casper Ho Yin Chung Binbin Cui Ruyuan Song Xin Liu Xiaonan Xu Shuhuai Yao |
| author_facet | Casper Ho Yin Chung Binbin Cui Ruyuan Song Xin Liu Xiaonan Xu Shuhuai Yao |
| author_sort | Casper Ho Yin Chung |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Droplet microfluidics enables the generation of highly uniform emulsions with excellent stability, precise control over droplet volume, and morphology, which offer superior platforms over conventional technologies for material synthesis and biological assays. However, it remains a challenge to scale up the production of the microfluidic devices due to their complicated geometry and long-term reliability. In this study, we present a high-throughput droplet generator by parallelization of high aspect ratio rectangular structures, which enables facile and scalable generation of uniform droplets without the need to precisely control external flow conditions. A multilayer device is formed by stacking layer-by-layer of the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) replica patterned with parallelized generators. By feeding the sample fluid into the device immersed in the carrying fluid, we used the multilayer device with 1200 parallelized generators to generate monodisperse droplets (~45 μm in diameter with a coefficient of variation <3%) at a frequency of 25 kHz. We demonstrate this approach is versatile for a wide range of materials by synthesis of polyacrylamide hydrogel and Poly (l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) through water-in-oil (W/O) and oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion templates, respectively. The combined scalability and robustness of such droplet emulsion technology is promising for production of monodisperse functional materials for large-scale applications. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T09:22:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f2dec4af118f4c1aba34ccfc9b638385 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2072-666X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T09:22:25Z |
| publishDate | 2019-09-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Micromachines |
| spelling | doaj.art-f2dec4af118f4c1aba34ccfc9b6383852022-12-21T19:08:59ZengMDPI AGMicromachines2072-666X2019-09-0110959210.3390/mi10090592mi10090592Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic ChannelsCasper Ho Yin Chung0Binbin Cui1Ruyuan Song2Xin Liu3Xiaonan Xu4Shuhuai Yao5Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, ChinaThunderBio, Hong Kong 999077, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, ChinaThunderBio, Hong Kong 999077, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, ChinaDroplet microfluidics enables the generation of highly uniform emulsions with excellent stability, precise control over droplet volume, and morphology, which offer superior platforms over conventional technologies for material synthesis and biological assays. However, it remains a challenge to scale up the production of the microfluidic devices due to their complicated geometry and long-term reliability. In this study, we present a high-throughput droplet generator by parallelization of high aspect ratio rectangular structures, which enables facile and scalable generation of uniform droplets without the need to precisely control external flow conditions. A multilayer device is formed by stacking layer-by-layer of the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) replica patterned with parallelized generators. By feeding the sample fluid into the device immersed in the carrying fluid, we used the multilayer device with 1200 parallelized generators to generate monodisperse droplets (~45 μm in diameter with a coefficient of variation <3%) at a frequency of 25 kHz. We demonstrate this approach is versatile for a wide range of materials by synthesis of polyacrylamide hydrogel and Poly (l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) through water-in-oil (W/O) and oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion templates, respectively. The combined scalability and robustness of such droplet emulsion technology is promising for production of monodisperse functional materials for large-scale applications.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/10/9/592droplet spontaneous generationmultilayer devicemicrosphere synthesismonodispersityscalable production |
| spellingShingle | Casper Ho Yin Chung Binbin Cui Ruyuan Song Xin Liu Xiaonan Xu Shuhuai Yao Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels Micromachines droplet spontaneous generation multilayer device microsphere synthesis monodispersity scalable production |
| title | Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels |
| title_full | Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels |
| title_fullStr | Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels |
| title_full_unstemmed | Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels |
| title_short | Scalable Production of Monodisperse Functional Microspheres by Multilayer Parallelization of High Aspect Ratio Microfluidic Channels |
| title_sort | scalable production of monodisperse functional microspheres by multilayer parallelization of high aspect ratio microfluidic channels |
| topic | droplet spontaneous generation multilayer device microsphere synthesis monodispersity scalable production |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/10/9/592 |
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