An Injection-Mold Based Method with a Nested Device for Microdroplet Generation by Centrifugation

Abstract

Microdroplets have been widely used in different fields due to their unique properties, such as compartmentalization, single-molecule sensitivity, chemical and biological compatibility, and high throughput. Compared to intricate and labor-intensive microfluidic techniques, the centrifuge-based method is more convenient and cost-effective for generating droplets. In this study, we developed a handy injection molding based method to readily produce monodisperse droplets by centrifugation. Briefly, we used two three-dimensional (3D) printed master molds with internal cavities to forge two coupled sub-molds by injecting polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and casted these two PDMS sub-molds into a nested structure that clamps the micro-channel array (MiCA) by injecting polyurethane resin. This method enables the generation of various sizes of monodispersed microdroplets by centrifugation with proper parameters within 10 min. To assess the performance of this method, homogeneous fluorescent hydrogel microspheres were generated and droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) was carried out. Overall, this method offers high-throughput droplet generation, reduces costs compared to other methods, and is user-friendly.