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Continuous transfer of liquid metal droplets across a fluid-fluid interface within an integrated microfluidic chip

Continuous transfer of liquid metal droplets across a fluid-fluid interface within an integrated microfluidic chip
Continuous transfer of liquid metal droplets across a fluid-fluid interface within an integrated microfluidic chip

Micro scale liquid metal droplets have been hailed as the potential key building blocks of future micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). However, most of the current liquid metal enabled systems involve millimeter scale droplets, which are manually injected onto the desired locations of the microchip. Despite its simplicity, this method is impractical for patterning large arrays or complex systems based on micro scale droplets. Here, we present a microfluidic chip, which integrates continuous generation of micro scale galinstan droplets in glycerol, and the hydrodynamic transfer of these droplets into sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution. Observation via high-speed imaging along with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis are utilised to comprehend the lateral migration of droplets from the glycerol to NaOH fluid. This platform is simple, can be readily integrated into other microfluidic systems, and creates flexibility by separating the continuous phase for droplet generation from the eventual target carrier fluid within a monolithic chip.

1473-0197
2476-2485
Gol, Berrak
186e91ea-b33b-49ed-8911-fe5a0b9c9253
Tovar-Lopez, Francisco J.
65b87359-8106-4328-9cfe-bd35ac3ca69d
Kurdzinski, Michael E.
3e1b1348-c85d-42e1-843d-f338553ea685
Tang, Shi Yang
1d0f15c6-2a3e-4bad-a3d8-fc267db93ed4
Petersen, Phred
9a4df14f-5a50-443a-b820-fd56499b9b3a
Mitchell, Arnan
33a18604-17e3-421e-b895-0f420d332cd4
Khoshmanesh, Khashayar
72608a1e-0e41-4360-8065-98d872493aed
Gol, Berrak
186e91ea-b33b-49ed-8911-fe5a0b9c9253
Tovar-Lopez, Francisco J.
65b87359-8106-4328-9cfe-bd35ac3ca69d
Kurdzinski, Michael E.
3e1b1348-c85d-42e1-843d-f338553ea685
Tang, Shi Yang
1d0f15c6-2a3e-4bad-a3d8-fc267db93ed4
Petersen, Phred
9a4df14f-5a50-443a-b820-fd56499b9b3a
Mitchell, Arnan
33a18604-17e3-421e-b895-0f420d332cd4
Khoshmanesh, Khashayar
72608a1e-0e41-4360-8065-98d872493aed

Gol, Berrak, Tovar-Lopez, Francisco J., Kurdzinski, Michael E., Tang, Shi Yang, Petersen, Phred, Mitchell, Arnan and Khoshmanesh, Khashayar (2015) Continuous transfer of liquid metal droplets across a fluid-fluid interface within an integrated microfluidic chip. Lab on a Chip, 15 (11), 2476-2485. (doi:10.1039/c5lc00415b).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Micro scale liquid metal droplets have been hailed as the potential key building blocks of future micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). However, most of the current liquid metal enabled systems involve millimeter scale droplets, which are manually injected onto the desired locations of the microchip. Despite its simplicity, this method is impractical for patterning large arrays or complex systems based on micro scale droplets. Here, we present a microfluidic chip, which integrates continuous generation of micro scale galinstan droplets in glycerol, and the hydrodynamic transfer of these droplets into sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution. Observation via high-speed imaging along with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis are utilised to comprehend the lateral migration of droplets from the glycerol to NaOH fluid. This platform is simple, can be readily integrated into other microfluidic systems, and creates flexibility by separating the continuous phase for droplet generation from the eventual target carrier fluid within a monolithic chip.

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More information

Published date: 7 June 2015
Additional Information: Publisher Copyright: © The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 481665
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/481665
ISSN: 1473-0197
PURE UUID: ad34b852-67b9-4fb0-8c33-e4c964e20217
ORCID for Shi Yang Tang: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3079-8880

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 05 Sep 2023 16:56
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 02:18

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Contributors

Author: Berrak Gol
Author: Francisco J. Tovar-Lopez
Author: Michael E. Kurdzinski
Author: Shi Yang Tang ORCID iD
Author: Phred Petersen
Author: Arnan Mitchell
Author: Khashayar Khoshmanesh

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