A 3D-Printed Standardized Modular Microfluidic System for Droplet Generation

Abstract

Droplet-based microfluidics has a variety of applications, such as material synthesis and single-cell analysis. In this paper, we propose a modular microfluidic system using projection micro-stereolithography three-dimensional (3D) printing technology for droplet generation. All modules are designed using a standard cubic structure with a specific leakage-free connection interface. Versatile droplets, including single droplets, alternating droplets, merged droplets, and Janus particles, have been successfully produced. The droplet size and the generation rate can be flexibly controlled by adjusting the flow rates. The influence of the flow rate fraction between the discrete phase and the continuous phase over the generation of the alternating and merged droplets is discussed. Furthermore, the ‘UV curing’ module can be employed to solidify the generated droplets to avoid coalescence and fix the status of the Janus particles. The proposed modular droplet generators are promising candidates for various chemical and biological applications, such as single-cell incubation, screening of protein crystallization conditions, synthesis of nanoparticles, and gene delivery. In addition, we envision that more functional modules, e.g., valve, microreactor, and detection modules, could be developed, and the 3D standardized modular microfluidics could be further applied to other complex systems, i.e., concentration gradient generators and clinical diagnostic systems.

Automated dynamic inlet microfluidics system: 3D printer adaptation for cost-effective, low volume, on-demand multi-analyte droplet generator

“…Macro systems are when microfluidics chips are not fabricated using the lithographic technique but are designed using alternative technologies such as three-dimensional (3D) printing. 12,13 In literature, 3D printing is mainly used either to create molds for PDMS 14 or print the microfluidic chips directly 15 like Junyi Chen et al 16 who developed a 3D printed modular microfluidic chips. The chips are fabricated using projection micro stereolithography 3D printing technology with a feature size of 10 μm.…”

Biomimetic Compound Eyes with Gradient Ommatidium Arrays

“…Plenty of solid compound eyes have been easily manufactured by femtosecond laser direct writing, nanoimprinting, laser-assisted wet etching, surface chemical etching, 3D printing, and photolithography. − Most of these solid-material-based artificial compound eyes have uniform ommatidium arrays and exhibit good imaging performance. Liquid materials have attracted a lot of research interest due to their low cost, and reconfigurable features, , such as tunable liquid lenses and reconfigurable droplet lens arrays, have been developed. − Lenses based on liquid materials are mostly collections of a small number of lenses or large-sized single lenses, and there are still challenges in combining such zoom mechanisms with compound eye structures, especially in manufacturing artificial compound eyes with hundreds or thousands of ommatidia. Optofluidics allows precise and sensitive manipulation of light or fluid to regulate system optical performance, ,− which has injected new vitality into the development of artificial compound eyes .…”