Ryu Jaewook, Kim Junhyeong, Han Ki-Ho
Department of Nanoscience and Engineering, Center for Nano Manufacturing, Inje University, 197, Inje-Ro, Gimhae 50834, Gyeongnam, Republic of Korea.
Lab Chip. 2023 Mar 28;23(7):1896-1904. doi: 10.1039/d2lc01069k.
A cost-effective, simple to use, and automated technique that can provide real-time feedback control for droplet generation is required to obtain droplets with high-throughput, stability, and uniformity. This study introduces a disposable droplet generation microfluidic device (dDrop-Chip) that can simultaneously control both droplet size and production rate in real time. The dDrop-Chip consists of a reusable sensing substrate and a disposable microchannel that can be assembled using vacuum pressure. It also integrates a droplet detector and a flow sensor on-chip, enabling real-time measurement and feedback control of droplet size and sample flow rate. The dDrop-Chip has the additional advantage of being disposable, which can prevent chemical and biological contamination, due to low manufacturing cost by the film-chip technique. We demonstrate benefits of the dDrop-Chip by controlling droplet size at a fixed sample flow rate and the production rate at a fixed droplet size using real-time feedback control. The experimental results show that the dDrop-Chip consistently generates monodisperse droplets with a length of 219.36 ± 0.08 μm (CV 0.036%) at a production rate of 32.38 ± 0.48 Hz using the feedback control, while without feedback control, there is a significant deviation in droplet length (224.18 ± 6.69 μm, CV 2.98%) and production rate (33.94 ± 1.72 Hz) despite the use of identical devices. Therefore, the dDrop-Chip is a reliable, cost-effective, and automated technique for generating droplets of controlled size and production rate in real time, making it suitable for various droplet-based applications.
需要一种经济高效、易于使用且能为液滴生成提供实时反馈控制的自动化技术，以获得具有高通量、稳定性和均匀性的液滴。本研究介绍了一种一次性液滴生成微流控装置（dDrop-Chip），它可以同时实时控制液滴大小和生成速率。dDrop-Chip由一个可重复使用的传感基板和一个可通过真空压力组装的一次性微通道组成。它还在芯片上集成了一个液滴探测器和一个流量传感器，能够对液滴大小和样品流速进行实时测量和反馈控制。dDrop-Chip的另一个优点是一次性使用，由于采用薄膜芯片技术制造成本低，可防止化学和生物污染。我们通过使用实时反馈控制在固定样品流速下控制液滴大小以及在固定液滴大小下控制生成速率，展示了dDrop-Chip的优势。实验结果表明，使用反馈控制时，dDrop-Chip在生成速率为32.38±0.48Hz的情况下，始终能产生长度为219.36±0.08μm（变异系数0.036%）的单分散液滴，而在没有反馈控制的情况下，尽管使用相同的装置，液滴长度（224.18±6.69μm，变异系数2.98%）和生成速率（33.94±1.72Hz）仍存在显著偏差。因此，dDrop-Chip是一种可靠、经济高效且自动化的技术，可实时生成大小和生成速率可控的液滴，适用于各种基于液滴的应用。
