Scale-up microsphere fabrication with controllable microsphere size has always been an exciting manufacturing challenge. The objective of this study is to experimentally study the effects of material properties and operating conditions on the formability of alginate microspheres and the microsphere size during drop-on-demand (DOD)-based single nozzle jetting. Alginate microspheres have been fabricated using bipolar wave-based drop-on-demand jetting, and its formability and size have been studied especially as a function of sodium alginate and calcium chloride concentrations, voltage rise/fall times, dwell and echo times, excitation voltage amplitudes, and frequency. It is found that 1) the formability is sensitive to the sodium alginate and calcium chloride concentrations, dwell and echo voltages, and voltage dwell time; and the formability decreases with the sodium alginate concentration but increases with the calcium chloride concentration, dwell and echo voltages, and voltage dwell time; 2) the size is not sensitive to the sodium alginate and calcium chloride concentrations but increases first with the dwell time and then decreases; and 3) the size increases with the dwell and absolute echo voltage amplitudes.

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Microspheres or droplets are increasingly finding various biomedical applications as drug microspheres and multicellular spheroids. Single nozzle-based continuous jetting with the help of acoustic excitation and/or carrier stream is a basic process for monodisperse microsphere fabrication. Precise control of microsphere size and size distribution in single nozzle jetting is still of great manufacturing interest. The objective of this study is to numerically model a glycerol-water microsphere fabrication process during acoustic excitation-based single nozzle continuous jetting. Using a volume of fluid method, this study has investigated the effects of material properties and fabrication conditions such as the acoustic excitation frequency and amplitude and the carrier stream velocity on the size of microspheres fabricated. (1) The microsphere diameter decreases as the glycerol volume percentage increases. (2) The excitation frequency and pressure have a pronounced effect on the microsphere size. The microsphere diameter decreases as the excitation frequency increases, and the microsphere diameter increases with the excitation pressure amplitude. (3) The microsphere size decreases as the carrier stream velocity increases.

Microspheres, small spherical (polymeric) particles with or without second phase materials embedded or encapsulated, are important for many biomedical applications such as drug delivery and organ printing. Scale-up fabrication with the ability to precisely control the microsphere size and morphology has always been of great manufacturing interest. The objective of this work is to experimentally study the performance differences of bipolar and tripolar excitation waveforms in using drop-on-demand (DOD)-based single nozzle jetting for alginate microsphere fabrication. The fabrication performance has been evaluated based on the formability of alginate microspheres as a function of materials properties (sodium alginate and calcium chloride concentrations) and operating conditions. The operating conditions for each excitation include voltage rise/fall times, dwell times and excitation voltage amplitudes. Overall, the bipolar excitation is more robust in making spherical, monodispersed alginate microspheres as good microspheres for its wide working range of material properties and operating conditions, especially during the fabrication of highly viscous materials such as the 2% sodium alginate solution. For both bipolar and tripolar excitations, the sodium alginate concentration and the voltage dwell times should be carefully selected to achieve good microsphere formability.

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