Optically controlled coalescence and splitting of femtoliter/picoliter droplets for microreactors

Wen, Mingcong; Yao, Benjun; Yuan, Shun; Zhang, Weina; Zhang, Yao; Yang, Guowei; Lei, Hongxiang

doi:10.1039/d2ra02230c

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Microdroplets have increasingly application prospects in the fields of microreactors, drug encapsulation, functional material synthesis, tissue engineering, and personal-care because of small size and large specific surface area [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The isolated system can be formed by the use of core-shell to wrap microdroplets, ensuring the stability of the microenvironment but avoiding contamination caused by material infiltration between adjacent droplets [7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microcurrent behavior of core-shell droplet deposition in coaxial electrohydrodynamic printing

Chen

Chen²,

Chen³

et al. 2023

Mater. Res. Express

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The core-shell droplets have the characteristics of stable micro-environment, small volume, large specific surface, which means wider application prospects in micro reactors, functional material synthesis and other fields. However, how to realize the controllable preparation of high flux, high resolution and small size for core-shell droplets is still the key point to be broken through. In this paper, the coaxial electrohydrodynamic printing (EHD) technology is used to combine the real-time microcurrent signal with the behavior characteristics of core-shell droplets, both achieve the interface behavior characteristics of the nozzle droplets to be analyzed and clarify the microcurrent behavior when the core-shell droplets are generated. At the same time, the influence of the inner and outer solution supply rate on the core-shell droplet was investigated. When the supply rate of inner solution changes from 10 μL/h increases to 90 μL/h, the average current increased from 0.0153 μA to 0.0652 μA, but also the droplet generation frequency raised by 14 times, moreover, the average diameter of droplets could be reduced by half. In contrast, the change of outer shell supply rate has less influence on the average current, generation frequency and diameter of droplets. This research provides a possibility for controllable high resolution of core-shell droplet EHD printing, which can be helpful significantly to improve the functional characteristics of the macroscopic and microstructure of the core-shell droplet.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microcurrent behavior of core-shell droplet deposition in coaxial electrohydrodynamic printing

Chen

Chen²,

Chen³

et al. 2023

Mater. Res. Express

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“…Functional molecular sensors and actuators such as calixarene uniformly dissolve in the chloroform [1], [2]. Therefore, the chloroform in the form of a microdroplet can act as a carrier or probe to contain these molecular sensors or as a microreactor [3]. The chloroform can form into microdroplets in water because its solubility in water is 8.09 g/L.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Trapping of a Single Chloroform Microdroplet in Water

2023

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The study aims to optically trap a single chloroform (CHCl3) microdroplet in water using optical tweezers. The study also investigates the effect of the preparation procedure by sonication on the chloroform microdroplet size and its stability in water. This microdroplet can potentially act as a carrier containing active molecules and for sensor applications in a fluid. The chloroform is sonicated in deionized water to produce a chloroform microdroplet solution. The size of the resultant microdroplets is observed under the optical microscope. The stability of the chloroform microdroplets in water was studied by monitoring the absorption spectra within a specified duration of time for 1 hour. A single chloroform microdroplet in the water is trapped using a 976 nm continuous laser beam with optical tweezers. The finding shows that the average size of the produced chloroform microdroplets does not vary significantly when the sonication time is less than 10 minutes. Furthermore, Chloroform microdroplets in water were stable within an hour of monitoring time. This study confirmed that a single chloroform microdroplet could be stably trapped using optical tweezers. It implies that the chloroform can form stable microdroplets in water and can be optically trapped under a focused laser.

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“…[ 26 ] It has been successfully used to manipulate and fuse oil/water microdroplets. [ 27,28 ] So, it is possible to achieve a fine color tuning by fusing multiple dye microdroplets at the same time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Color Tuning Using Scanning Optical Tweezers

Yao,

Yuan,

Yang

et al. 2023

Advanced Photonics Research

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Color tuning plays an increasingly vital role in daily life, including painting, printing, decoration, and animation display. Among many nonemissive color tuning technologies with low‐cost and low‐energy consumption, direct color mixing is simpler without fine and complex display structural designs or specific synthetic materials. Nevertheless, it yet faces an enormous challenge in precise color tuning due to high requirement for integrating dyes in a designable way. Herein, a scanning optical tweezers‐based color mixing method is proposed for precise color tuning. Water/oil‐soluble dye microdroplets with different sizes and colors can be stably captured and then rapidly fused by setting and exerting different trajectories of optical traps under optical tweezers. Thus, the color hue, saturation, and value of the mixed microdroplet can be accurately tuned. Besides, this is further applied to the optical assembly of colorful patterns in a programmable manner. The proposed method is more effective in harvesting pure color and high color quality without introducing exogenous materials contaminating the sample during the manipulation process, which is believed to have potential applications in liquid animation, human–robot interactive painting, and color sensing.

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Optically controlled coalescence and splitting of femtoliter/picoliter droplets for microreactors

Abstract: Optical trapping, transportation, coalescence and splitting of femto-/pico-liter microdroplets are realized based on a scanning optical tweezing system. On this basis, the microdroplets are used as microreactors to conduct the microreactions.

Cited by 6 publications

References 42 publications

Microcurrent behavior of core-shell droplet deposition in coaxial electrohydrodynamic printing

Microcurrent behavior of core-shell droplet deposition in coaxial electrohydrodynamic printing

Optical Trapping of a Single Chloroform Microdroplet in Water

Color Tuning Using Scanning Optical Tweezers

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