Basic Technologies for Droplet Microfluidics

Abstract

In recent years droplet microfluidics has become a quickly evolving research field. The availability of a wide range of technologies for droplet generation and manipulation has enabled the applications of droplet microfluidics in a wide variety of fields, from single cell analysis to material synthesis. In this review we summarize the main technologies for droplet microfluidics and discuss the recent advances in technologies that enable droplets as microreactors with complete functions. Applications of microdroplets in chemical reactions, particle synthesis, and single cell analysis are also briefly reviewed.

micrIO: an open-source autosampler and fraction collector for automated microfluidic input–output

“…Microfluidic bead generation provides an excellent test application for the AutoSipper and Fraction Collector. First, many labs across the world generate droplets using microfluidic T-junction or flow focusing devices for a variety of ap-plications, 34 including single-cell genomics, 35 high-throughput protein screening, 36,37 and digital droplet PCR. 38,39 Second, generation of microfluidic droplets containing spectrally distinct materials allows detection of minute amounts of carryover during both input (which would manifest as a drift in bead code) and output (which would manifest as beads of a certain code being collected into the wrong receptacle).…”

Advances in Microfluidics Applied to Single Cell Operation

“…With these features, microdroplet is very conducive to high‐throughput analysis or screening . Furthermore, microdroplet has some superiority including small volume, no cross‐contamination and fast reaction kinetics over other technologies . Nowadays microdroplet technique has developed multiple operating units, such as single‐cell encapsulation and reagents introduction.…”

Polymer-Based Microfluidic Devices for Pharmacy, Biology and Tissue Engineering

“…Hydrogel microbeads formed as crosslinked microdroplets include liquid gel in the presence of cells [314,[316][317][318][319][320]; these have been fabricated from a rapidly-polymerized and dense alginate [318][319][320][321]. These approaches have strong potential to be used in biosensors, cell sensors, drug delivery systems, and cell transplantation applications, such as the encapsulation of cells in alginate hydrogels with a high monodispersity.…”