A disposable emulsion droplet generation lab chips driven by vacuum module for manipulation of blood cells.

This paper presents a novel disposable emulsion droplet generation lab chip driven by vacuum module for monodisperse emulsions generation and blood cell encapsulation. Emulsion droplet is a powerful tool in miniaturized analysis systems for high throughput processing. It shows great potential in chemical and biological reactions like speeding up the reaction and reducing the cost of reagents. Most research groups use syringe pumps providing positive pressure to drive the fluids. However, the long tubing connection and high cost make the microfluidic systems complicate and unsuitable for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) device. In this paper, our emulsion droplet generation lab chip with disposable vacuum module, made of shape memory polymer, provides a negative pressure to drive the fluids. This lab chip could achieve creating monodisperse emulsion droplets by manipulating two-phase microfluidic within 1 set of vacuum module and mini-heater. In the meantime, the waste is gathered into the cavity of vacuum module. This makes this lab chip safe while using biological samples. The vacuum module shows the advantages of compact, simple structure, and east-to-attach with the microfluidic device and great performance in the experiments.