Hamidović Medina, Marta Uli, Bridle Helen, Hamidović Damir, Fink Gerold, Wille Robert, Springer Andreas, Haselmayr Werner
Institute for Communications Engineering and RF-Systems, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz 4040, Austria.
Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
ACS Omega. 2020 Apr 23;5(17):9684-9689. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03883. eCollection 2020 May 5.
We present a simple, stable, and highly reproducible off-chip-controlled method for generating droplets-on-demand. To induce the droplet generation, externally pre-programmed positive pressure pulses are applied to the dispersed phase input while the continuous phase channel remains at constant input pressure. By controlling solely one fluid phase, the method allows for connecting multiple independent dispersed-phase channels to a single continuous channel. Experimental results show that the method allows for a droplet generation frequency of 33 Hz and a high reproducibility of droplets with standard deviations less than 5% of the mean value. Moreover, utilization of the off-chip-controlled method results in the simplicity in chip design and allows rapid (∼5 min) and cost-efficient (0.5 USD) prototyping of the device.
我们提出了一种简单、稳定且高度可重复的片外控制方法来按需生成液滴。为了诱导液滴生成，在连续相通道保持恒定输入压力的同时，将外部预编程的正压脉冲施加到分散相输入。通过仅控制一个流体相，该方法允许将多个独立的分散相通道连接到单个连续通道。实验结果表明，该方法的液滴生成频率为33 Hz，并且液滴具有高再现性，标准偏差小于平均值的5%。此外，采用片外控制方法可简化芯片设计，并允许快速（约5分钟）且经济高效（0.5美元）地制作该设备的原型。
