We previously established an automatic droplet‐creation technique that only required air evacuation of a PDMS microfluidic device prior to use. Although the rate of droplet production with this technique was originally slow (∼10 droplets per second), this was greatly improved (∼470 droplets per second) in our recent study by remodeling the original device configuration. This improvement was realized by the addition of a degassed PDMS layer with a large surface area‐to‐volume ratio that served as a powerful vacuum generator. However, the incorporation of the additional PDMS layer (which was separate from the microfluidic PDMS layer itself) into the device required reversible bonding of five different layers. In the current study, we aimed to simplify the device architecture by reducing the number of constituent layers for enhancing usability of this microfluidic droplet generator while retaining its rapid production rate. The new device consisted of three layers. This comprised a degassed PDMS slab with microfluidic channels on one surface and tens of thousands of vacuum‐generating micropillars on the other surface, which was simply sandwiched by PMMA layers. Despite its simplified configuration, this new device created monodisperse droplets at an even faster rate (>1000 droplets per second).

中文翻译：

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一种简化的 PDMS 微流体装置，具有内置抽吸执行器，可快速产生单分散油包水液滴。


我们之前建立了一种自动液滴生成技术，只需在使用前对 PDMS 微流体装置进行空气排空即可。尽管这种技术的液滴产生速率最初很慢（每秒约 10 个液滴），但在我们最近的研究中，通过重塑原始设备配置，这一速度得到了极大改善（每秒约 470 个液滴）。这一改进是通过添加具有大表面积与体积比的脱气 PDMS 层来实现的，该层可充当强大的真空发生器。然而，将附加的 PDMS 层（与微流体 PDMS 层本身分开）合并到设备中需要五个不同层的可逆键合。在当前的研究中，我们的目标是通过减少组成层的数量来简化设备架构，以增强这种微流体液滴发生器的可用性，同时保持其快速的生产率。新装置由三层组成。它由一个脱气的 PDMS 板组成，一个表面上有微流体通道，另一表面上有数万个产生真空的微柱，它只是被 PMMA 层夹在中间。尽管配置简化，但这种新设备以更快的速度（每秒 >1000 个液滴）产生单分散液滴。