Controlled Encapsulation of Micron-Sized Beads in a Droplet Based on Pulse Inertia Force Driving of Micro-Fluids

Abstract:

Loading drops with discrete objects, such as particles and cells, is often necessary when performing chemical and biological assays in microfluidic devices. The vast majority of reported encapsulating methods of particles into monodisperse picolitre droplets are based on micro-fluidic chip using the standard soft lithography technique are necessary. This paper presents a new approach, not based on micro-fluidic chip, for encapsulating particles into droplets actuated by microfluidic pulse inertia force. The polystyrene bead suspension can be ejected out of a tapered glass capillary in mineral oil drop by drop actuated by an enough pulse inertia force which is produced by a hollow PZT stack. The polystyrene beads will be randomly encapsulated in monodisperse picolitre droplets. The tapered glass capillary has the advantages of good chemical resistance, low friction, easy to manufacture and low cost and is suitable for chemical and biological analysis. The minimum size of the spherical droplets can reach 12 μm in diameter and about 1 picolitre in volume. The percentage of the droplets with single 5 μm-diameter polystyrene bead can reach 40% when the droplet size is 40 μm and the concentration of the bead suspension is 1×10⁷ beads per milliliter. The experiment result can be applied in droplet-based single cell encapsulating and analyzing.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volumes 645-646)
• Pages: 1009-1015
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.645-646.1009
• Online since: May 2015
• Authors: Hong Cheng Wang*, Li Jun Yang, Jia Liu, Zhen Dong Dai
• Keywords: Bead Encapsulation, Droplet Microfluidics, Micro-Nozzle, Piezoelectric Actuator

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