Microfluidic generation of aqueous two-phase-system (ATPS) droplets by oil-droplet choppers,Lab on a Chip

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Microfluidic generation of aqueous two-phase-system (ATPS) droplets by oil-droplet choppers
Lab on a Chip ( IF 6.1 ) Pub Date : 2017-08-22 00:00:00 , DOI: 10.1039/c7lc00696a
Chunmei Zhou _{1,

2,

3,

4,

5} , Pingan Zhu _{1,

2,

3,

4,

5} , Ye Tian _{1,

2,

3,

4,

5} , Xin Tang _{1,

2,

3,

4,

5} , Rui Shi _{1,

2,

3,

4,

5} , Liqiu Wang _{1,

2,

3,

4,

5}

Affiliation

Existing approaches for droplet generation with an ultra-low interfacial tension using aqueous two-phase systems, ATPS, are either constricted by a narrow range of flow conditions using passive methods or subjected to complex chip fabrication with the integration of external components using active actuation. To address these issues, we present a simple approach to produce uniform ATPS droplets facilitated by oil-droplet choppers in microfluidics. Our solution counts on the synchronized formation of high-interfacial-tension oil-in-water and low-interfacial-tension water-in-water droplets, where the ATPS interface is distorted by oil droplets and decays into water-in-water droplets. In the synchronization regime, the size and generation frequency of ATPS droplets can be controlled independently by tuning the flow rates of the dispersed aqueous and oil phases, respectively. Our method demonstrates high uniformity of droplets (coefficient of variation between 0.75% and 2.45%), a wide range of available droplet size (droplet radius from 5 μm to 180 μm), and a maximum generation frequency of about 2.1 kHz that is nearly two orders of magnitude faster than that in existing methods. We develop theoretical models to precisely predict the minimum and maximum frequencies of droplet generation and the droplet size. The produced ATPS droplets and oil choppers are separated in the channel using density difference. Our method would boost emulsion-based biological applications such as cell encapsulation, biomolecule delivery, bioreactors, and biomaterials synthesis with ATPS droplets.

中文翻译：

油滴斩波器微流体产生两相系统（ATPS）液滴

使用水相两相系统ATPS产生具有超低界面张力的液滴的现有方法，要么通过被动方法在狭窄的流动条件范围内受到限制，要么通过主动驱动将复杂的芯片制造与外部组件集成在一起。为了解决这些问题，我们提出了一种通过微流控中的油滴斩波器促进产生均匀ATPS液滴的简单方法。我们的解决方案依靠高界面张力的水包油和低界面张力的水包油滴的同步形成，其中ATPS界面会被油滴扭曲并衰减成水包水滴。在同步机制中通过分别调节分散的水相和油相的流速，可以独立地控制ATPS液滴的大小和产生频率。我们的方法证明了液滴的高度均匀性（变异系数在0.75％和2.45％之间），可用液滴尺寸的范围很广（液滴半径从5μm到180μm），最大产生频率约为2.1 kHz，几乎是两个比现有方法快几个数量级。我们开发了理论模型来精确预测液滴产生的最小和最大频率以及液滴大小。使用密度差在通道中分离出产生的ATPS液滴和切油器。我们的方法将促进基于乳液的生物应用，例如细胞封装，生物分子传递，生物反应器，

更新日期：2017-09-04

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