Phased peristaltic micropumping for continuous sampling and hardcoded droplet generation
Phased peristaltic micropumping for continuous sampling and hardcoded droplet generation
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DOI：
10.1039/c6lc01479h
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发表时间：
2017-03-21
期刊：
影响因子：
6.1
通讯作者：
Niu, Xize
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nightingale, Adrian M.;Evans, Gareth W. H.;Niu, Xize
液滴微流控技术最近成为一种新的工程工具，用于小样品体积的生化分析。液滴生成最通常通过将水相和油相引入T形接头或流动聚焦通道几何形状中来实现。这种方法产生的液滴对流动条件和流体成分的变化敏感。在这里，我们提出了一种替代方法，使用一个简单的蠕动微型泵，以提供反相脉冲的水相和油相，从而产生一个强大的“斩波”的液滴生成的方法。该方法提供可控的液滴动力学，液滴体积仅由泵设计确定，并且对液体性质和流速不敏感。重要的是，具有受控成分的液滴序列可以硬编码到泵中，从而轻松实现滴定和稀释等化学操作。推拉式泵结构紧凑，可连续采集样品，在采样点附近产生液滴，稳定时间短。我们设想，这种强大的液滴生成方法非常适合连续原位采样和化学测量，允许液滴微流体走出实验室，进入现场部署应用。
Droplet microfluidics has recently emerged as a new engineering tool for biochemical analysis of small sample volumes. Droplet generation is most commonly achieved by introducing aqueous and oil phases into a T-junction or a flow focusing channel geometry. This method produces droplets that are sensitive to changes in flow conditions and fluid composition. Here, we present an alternative approach using a simple peristaltic micropump to deliver the aqueous and oil phases in antiphase pulses resulting in a robust "chopping"-like method of droplet generation. This method offers controllable droplet dynamics, with droplet volumes solely determined by the pump design, and is insensitive to liquid properties and flow rates. Importantly, sequences of droplets with controlled composition can be hardcoded into the pump, allowing chemical operations such as titrations and dilutions to be easily achieved. The push-pull pump is compact and can continuously collect samples, generating droplets close to the sampling site and with short stabilisation time. We envisage that this robust droplet generation method is highly suited for continuous in situ sampling and chemical measurement, allowing droplet microfluidics to step out of the lab and into field-deployable applications.