Novel glass capillary microfluidic devices for the flexible and simple production of multi-cored double emulsions

Leister, Nico; Vladisavljević, Goran T.; Karbstein, Heike P.

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.094

Cited by 31 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The same trend with smaller droplets of PEGDA solution generated at higher external shear was observed in a microfluidic T junction device [24] and a co-flow glass capillary device in the presence of electric shear [30]. At Q 1 /Q 2 = const, smaller droplets were produced at smaller orifice sizes, Figure 7b, which is in agreement with previously reported data obtained with different emulsions [40,46]. The effect of both parameters on d d can be summarised by the following scaling low equation:…”

Section: Impact Of Orifice Size and Flow Rate Ratio On Droplet/partic...supporting

confidence: 90%

“…In this study, monodisperse PEGDA beads with controllable size and porosity were generated in a novel, reusable microfluidic device composed of glass capillaries and Lego ®inspired polymeric holders fabricated by CNC milling. The same Lego ® -inspired holders were recently used to generate multiple emulsions in a different experimental set-up [40]. This is the first study to produce PEGDA beads in a glass capillary device with Lego ®inspired holders.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Facile Microfluidic Fabrication of Biocompatible Hydrogel Microspheres in a Novel Microfluidic Device

et al. 2022

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Poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) microgels with tuneable size and porosity find applications as extracellular matrix mimics for tissue-engineering scaffolds, biosensors, and drug carriers. Monodispersed PEGDA microgels were produced by modular droplet microfluidics using the dispersed phase with 49–99 wt% PEGDA, 1 wt% Darocur 2959, and 0–50 wt% water, while the continuous phase was 3.5 wt% silicone-based surfactant dissolved in silicone oil. Pure PEGDA droplets were fully cured within 60 s at the UV light intensity of 75 mW/cm2. The droplets with higher water content required more time for curing. Due to oxygen inhibition, the polymerisation started in the droplet centre and advanced towards the edge, leading to a temporary solid core/liquid shell morphology, confirmed by tracking the Brownian motion of fluorescent latex nanoparticles within a droplet. A volumetric shrinkage during polymerisation was 1–4% for pure PEGDA droplets and 20–32% for the droplets containing 10–40 wt% water. The particle volume increased by 36–50% after swelling in deionised water. The surface smoothness and sphericity of the particles decreased with increasing water content in the dispersed phase. The porosity of swollen particles was controlled from 29.7% to 41.6% by changing the water content in the dispersed phase from 10 wt% to 40 wt%.

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Section: Impact Of Orifice Size and Flow Rate Ratio On Droplet/partic...supporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facile Microfluidic Fabrication of Biocompatible Hydrogel Microspheres in a Novel Microfluidic Device

et al. 2022

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“…This concentric channel architecture is most commonly achieved by glass capillaries, − 3D printing, − or by multi-layer soft lithography. , These fabrication methods require complex equipment, expensive facilities, and/or technical expertise to perform. − Out of these, glass capillary devices feature greater compatibility with organic solvents and robust surface modification options, making them well suited to DE production for drug delivery and microparticle applications . However, glass capillaries are limited due to greater device-to-device variability and difficulty producing small DE drops due to the larger channel dimensions. − Smaller DE drops (∼50 um or less) are required for flow cytometry sorting and improve throughput during sorting, single-cell analysis, and ddPCR …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simplified, Shear Induced Generation of Double Emulsions for Robust Compartmentalization during Single Genome Analysis

Cowell

Dobria

Han

2022

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

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Drop microfluidics has driven innovations for high throughput, low input analysis techniques such as single-cell RNA-seq. However, the instability of single emulsion (SE) drops occasionally causes significant merging during drop processing, limiting most applications to single-step reactions in drops. Here, we show that double emulsion (DE) drops address this critical limitation and completely prevent drop contents from mixing. DEs show excellent stability during thermal cycling. More importantly, DEs undergo rupture into the continuous phase instead of merging, preventing content mixing and eliminating unstable drops from the downstream analysis. Due to the lack of drop merging, the monodispersity of drops is maintained throughout a workflow, enabling the deterministic manipulation of drops downstream. We also developed a simple, one-layer DE drop maker compatible with simple surface treatment using a plasma cleaner. The device allows for the robust production of single-core DEs at a wide range of flow rates and better control over the shell thickness, both of which have been significant limitations of conventional two-layer devices. This approach makes the fabrication of DE devices much more accessible, facilitating its broader adoption. Finally, we show that DE droplets eliminate content mixing and maintain compartmentalization of single virus genomes during PCR-based amplification and barcoding, while SEs mixed contents due to merging. With their resistance to content mixing, DE drops have key advantages for multistep reactions in drops, which is limited in SEs due to merging and content mixing.

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“…While the method allows an optimum of mechanistic understanding to be gained, the method will be only used by research groups focusing on microfluidics. With the establishment of a suitable microfluidic process through which to produce double emulsions with multiple inner droplets, the complete break-down of a double-emulsion formulation can also be observed [51]. Accordingly, all three coalescence mechanisms can be tracked at once, eliminating the disadvantage that arises from using single emulsions for the description of double emulsions, namely that the optimizing of the stability against one coalescence mechanism might result in a worse stability against the other two.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oil Droplet Coalescence in W/O/W Double Emulsions Examined in Models from Micrometer- to Millimeter-Sized Droplets

Leister

Yan

Karbstein

2022

Colloids and Interfaces

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Water-in-oil-in-water (W1/O/W2) double emulsions must resist W1–W1, O–O and W1–W2 coalescence to be suitable for applications. This work isolates the stability of the oil droplets in a double emulsion, focusing on the impact of the concentration of the hydrophilic surfactant. The stability against coalescence was measured on droplets ranging in size from millimeters to micrometers, evaluating three different measurement methods. The time between the contact and coalescence of millimeter-sized droplets at a planar interface was compared to the number of coalescence events in a microfluidic emulsion and to the change in the droplet size distributions of micrometer-sized single and double emulsions. For the examined formulations, the same stability trends were found in all three droplet sizes. When the concentration of the hydrophilic surfactant is reduced drastically, lipophilic surfactants can help to increase the oil droplets’ stability against coalescence. This article also provides recommendations as to which purpose each of the model experiments is suited and discusses advantages and limitations compared to previous research carried out directly on double emulsions.

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Novel glass capillary microfluidic devices for the flexible and simple production of multi-cored double emulsions

Cited by 31 publications

References 51 publications

Facile Microfluidic Fabrication of Biocompatible Hydrogel Microspheres in a Novel Microfluidic Device

Facile Microfluidic Fabrication of Biocompatible Hydrogel Microspheres in a Novel Microfluidic Device

Simplified, Shear Induced Generation of Double Emulsions for Robust Compartmentalization during Single Genome Analysis

Oil Droplet Coalescence in W/O/W Double Emulsions Examined in Models from Micrometer- to Millimeter-Sized Droplets

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