Sreejith Kamalalayam Rajan, Ooi Chin Hong, Jin Jing, Dao Dzung Viet, Nguyen Nam-Trung
Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, 4111 Queensland, Australia.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2019 May;90(5):055102. doi: 10.1063/1.5094522.
Liquid marble is a recently emerging digital microfluidic platform with a wide range of applications. Conventional liquid marbles are synthesized by coating liquid droplets with a thin layer of hydrophobic powder. Existing and emerging applications of liquid marbles require a contamination-free synthesis of liquid marbles with a high degree of reproducibility of their volume. Despite this requirement, the synthesis of liquid marbles has been still carried out manually. Manual production of liquid marbles leads to inconsistent volume and the possibility of contamination. The synthesis of liquid marbles with submicroliter volume is difficult to achieve and prone to large errors. This paper discusses the design and development of the first automated on-demand liquid marble generator with submicroliter capability. The device utilizes electrohydrodynamic pulling of liquid droplets on to a hydrophobic powder bed and subsequently coats them with the hydrophobic powder to synthesize liquid marbles of a desired volume.
液滴弹是一种最近出现的数字微流控平台，具有广泛的应用。传统的液滴弹是通过用一层薄薄的疏水粉末包裹液滴来合成的。液滴弹的现有和新兴应用要求合成无污染且体积具有高度可重复性的液滴弹。尽管有此要求，但液滴弹的合成仍一直是手动进行的。手动生产液滴弹会导致体积不一致以及污染的可能性。合成亚微升体积的液滴弹很难实现且容易产生较大误差。本文讨论了首个具有亚微升能力的自动化按需液滴弹发生器的设计与开发。该装置利用电流体动力学将液滴拉到疏水粉末床上，随后用疏水粉末包裹它们，以合成所需体积的液滴弹。
