1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
2 Department of Material Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
SLAS Technol. 2017 Oct;22(5):529-535. doi: 10.1177/2472630317692558. Epub 2017 Feb 21.
This article describes an integrated platform for the on-chip exchange of the continuous phase in droplet microfluidic systems. The drops used in this work are stabilized by amphiphilic nanoparticles. For some characterizations and applications of these nanoparticle-stabilized drops, including the measurement of adsorption dynamics of nanoparticles to the droplet surface, it is necessary to change the composition of the continuous phase from that used during the droplet generation process. Thus far, no work has reported the exchange of the continuous phase for a large number (>1 million) of drops in a microfluidic system. This article describes the design and characterization of a high-efficiency and high-throughput on-chip exchanger of the continuous phase in a continuous-flow droplet microfluidic system. The efficiency of exchange was higher than 97%. The throughput was greater than 1 million drops/min, and this can be increased further by increasing the number of parallel exchangers used. Because drops are injected into the exchanger in a continuous-flow manner, the method is directly compatible with automation to further increase its reliability and potential scale-up.
本文介绍了一种用于在液滴微流控系统中进行连续相在线交换的集成平台。本工作中使用的液滴由两亲性纳米粒子稳定。对于这些纳米粒子稳定的液滴的一些特性和应用，包括测量纳米粒子在液滴表面的吸附动力学，需要将连续相的组成从液滴生成过程中使用的连续相改变。到目前为止，还没有工作报道在微流控系统中对大量（>100 万）液滴进行连续相的交换。本文描述了一种在连续流动液滴微流控系统中高效、高通量的连续相在线交换器的设计和特性。交换效率高于 97%。流量大于 100 万滴/分钟，通过增加使用的并联交换器的数量可以进一步提高。由于液滴以连续流动的方式注入交换器，因此该方法与自动化直接兼容，进一步提高了其可靠性和潜在的可扩展性。
