Droplet Merging on a Lab-on-a-Chip Platform by Uniform Magnetic Fields

Droplet microfluidics offers a range of Lab-on-a-chip (LoC) applications. However, wireless and programmable manipulation of such droplets is a challenge. We address this challenge by experimental and modelling studies of uniform magnetic field induced merging of ferrofluid based droplets. Control of droplet velocity and merging was achieved through uniform magnetic field and flow rate ratio. Conditions for droplet merging with respect to droplet velocity were studied. Merging and mixing of colour dye + magnetite composite droplets was demonstrated. Our experimental and numerical results are in good agreement. These studies are useful for wireless and programmable droplet merging as well as mixing relevant to biosensing, bioassay, microfluidic-based synthesis, reaction kinetics, and magnetochemistry.

[1]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Nonlinear deformation of a ferrofluid droplet in a uniform magnetic field. , 2011, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[2]  C. Bárcena,et al.  APPLICATIONS OF MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLES IN BIOMEDICINE , 2003 .

[3]  Christoph A. Merten,et al.  Droplet-based microfluidics in drug discovery, transcriptomics and high-throughput molecular genetics. , 2016, Lab on a chip.

[4]  Josep Puigmartí-Luis,et al.  Microfluidic platforms: a mainstream technology for the preparation of crystals. , 2014, Chemical Society reviews.

[5]  Z. G. Li,et al.  Fast on-demand droplet fusion using transient cavitation bubbles. , 2011, Lab on a chip.

[6]  D. Weitz,et al.  Fluorescence-activated droplet sorting (FADS): efficient microfluidic cell sorting based on enzymatic activity. , 2009, Lab on a chip.

[7]  Xiaohu Zhou,et al.  Accelerating the "On Water" Reaction: By Organic-Water Interface or By Hydrodynamic Effects? , 2015, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[8]  J Justin Gooding,et al.  Synthesis and high-throughput processing of polymeric hydrogels for 3D cell culture. , 2014, Bioconjugate chemistry.

[9]  Saifullah Lone,et al.  Fabrication of polymeric Janus particles by droplet microfluidics , 2014 .

[10]  Piero Carninci,et al.  Population transcriptomics with single-cell resolution: A new field made possible by microfluidics: A technology for high throughput transcript counting and data-driven definition of cell types , 2012, BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology.

[11]  Karan V. I. S. Kaler,et al.  Droplet Microfluidics for Chip-Based Diagnostics , 2014, Sensors.

[12]  R. Amal,et al.  Production of formic acid from CO2 reduction by means of potassium borohydride at ambient conditions , 2015 .

[13]  J. Edd,et al.  A review of the theory, methods and recent applications of high-throughput single-cell droplet microfluidics , 2013 .

[14]  Robert Langer,et al.  Preparation of monodisperse biodegradable polymer microparticles using a microfluidic flow-focusing device for controlled drug delivery. , 2009, Small.

[15]  Huaizhi Li,et al.  Shear-induced tail breakup of droplets (bubbles) flowing in a straight microfluidic channel , 2015 .

[16]  Wei Wang,et al.  Functional polymeric microparticles engineered from controllable microfluidic emulsions. , 2014, Accounts of chemical research.

[17]  M. Renardy,et al.  Deformation of a hydrophobic ferrofluid droplet suspended in a viscous medium under uniform magnetic fields , 2009, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[18]  A. Theberge,et al.  Microdroplets in microfluidics: an evolving platform for discoveries in chemistry and biology. , 2010, Angewandte Chemie.

[19]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Manipulation of ferrofluid droplets using planar coils , 2006 .

[20]  Gungun Lin,et al.  Magnetofluidic platform for multidimensional magnetic and optical barcoding of droplets. , 2015, Lab on a chip.

[21]  M. Proskurnin,et al.  Interfacial Phenomena and Fluid Control in Micro/Nanofluidics. , 2016, Analytical sciences : the international journal of the Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry.

[22]  Nicole Pamme,et al.  Magnetism and microfluidics. , 2006, Lab on a chip.

[23]  M. N. Kashani,et al.  A new method for reconstruction of the structure of micro-packed beds of spherical particles from desktop X-ray microtomography images. Part A. Initial structure generation and porosity determination , 2016 .

[24]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Kinematics and deformation of ferrofluid droplets under magnetic actuation , 2007 .

[25]  Gang Chen,et al.  Low‐Temperature Thermal Bonding of PMMA Microfluidic Chips , 2005 .

[26]  Nate J. Cira,et al.  Vapour-mediated sensing and motility in two-component droplets , 2015, Nature.

[27]  Q. Pankhurst,et al.  Applications of magnetic nanoparticles in biomedicine , 2003 .

[28]  Huaizhi Li,et al.  Breakup dynamics of slender droplet formation in shear-thinning fluids in flow-focusing devices , 2016 .

[29]  Dino Di Carlo,et al.  Drop formation using ferrofluids driven magnetically in a step emulsification device. , 2016, Lab on a chip.

[30]  D. Beebe,et al.  Controlled microfluidic interfaces , 2005, Nature.

[31]  Ching-Yao Chen,et al.  Ordered microdroplet formations of thin ferrofluid layer breakups , 2010 .

[32]  A. Ghaffari,et al.  CFD simulation of equilibrium shape and coalescence of ferrofluid droplets subjected to uniform magnetic field , 2015 .

[33]  Tian Tian,et al.  Anisotropic colloidal crystal particles from microfluidics. , 2014, Journal of colloid and interface science.

[34]  D. J. Shin,et al.  Novel droplet platforms for the detection of disease biomarkers , 2014, Expert review of molecular diagnostics.

[35]  Michele Zagnoni,et al.  Droplet-interface-bilayer assays in microfluidic passive networks , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[36]  Ching-Yao Chen,et al.  An experimental study on Rosensweig instability of a ferrofluid droplet , 2008 .

[37]  S. Herminghaus,et al.  Droplet based microfluidics , 2012, Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society.

[38]  Guoyou Huang,et al.  Advances in fabricating double-emulsion droplets and their biomedical applications , 2015 .

[39]  Xinghua Wang,et al.  Instability-Induced Mixing of Ferrofluids in Uniform Magnetic Fields , 2016, IEEE Magnetics Letters.

[40]  Mary L. Boas,et al.  Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences , 1968 .

[41]  Manu Prakash,et al.  Synchronous universal droplet logic and control , 2015, Nature Physics.

[42]  Pamela Habibovic,et al.  High-throughput screening approaches and combinatorial development of biomaterials using microfluidics. , 2016, Acta biomaterialia.

[43]  James E. Burroughs,et al.  Rapid method for determining densities of liquids using micro syringes , 1974 .

[44]  R. Ramanujan,et al.  Magnetic Trapping of Bacteria at Low Magnetic Fields , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[45]  A. Lee,et al.  Alternating droplet generation and controlled dynamic droplet fusion in microfluidic device for CdS nanoparticle synthesis. , 2006, Lab on a chip.

[46]  R. Ramanujan,et al.  Spreading of a ferrofluid core in three-stream micromixer channels , 2015 .

[47]  M. Packirisamy,et al.  Microfluidics-Nano-Integration for Synthesis and Sensing , 2012 .

[48]  Sosaku Ichikawa,et al.  Industrial lab-on-a-chip: design, applications and scale-up for drug discovery and delivery. , 2013, Advanced drug delivery reviews.

[49]  Z. P. Wang,et al.  Tuning magnetofluidic spreading in microchannels , 2015 .

[50]  Tuncay Alan,et al.  Microfluidic on-demand droplet merging using surface acoustic waves. , 2014, Lab on a chip.

[51]  EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF A HYBRID FERROHYDRODYNAMIC INSTABILITY IN MISCIBLE FERROFLUIDS: DROPLET SIZE EFFECTS , 2009 .

[52]  Oliver J. Dressler,et al.  Droplet-Based Microfluidics , 2014, Journal of biomolecular screening.

[53]  Limu Wang,et al.  Microdroplet-based universal logic gates by electrorheological fluid , 2011 .

[54]  A. Ahmadi,et al.  Magnetohydrodynamic actuation of droplets for millimetric planar fluidic systems , 2016 .

[55]  Teodor Veres,et al.  Integration and detection of biochemical assays in digital microfluidic LOC devices. , 2010, Lab on a chip.

[56]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  One-dimensional actuation of a ferrofluid droplet by planar microcoils , 2009 .

[57]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Rapid magnetofluidic mixing in a uniform magnetic field. , 2012, Lab on a chip.

[58]  Jing Liu,et al.  Numerical study of the formation process of ferrofluid droplets , 2011 .

[59]  Chiun-Peng Lee,et al.  Field dependent shape variation of magnetic fluid droplets on magnetic dots , 2012 .

[60]  Zhiping Wang,et al.  Magnetic Droplet Merging by Hybrid Magnetic Fields , 2016, IEEE Magnetics Letters.

[61]  Ching-Yao Chen,et al.  Self-assembly and novel planetary motion of ferrofluid drops in a rotational magnetic field , 2014 .

[62]  Wenbin Du,et al.  Automated Chemotactic Sorting and Single-cell Cultivation of Microbes using Droplet Microfluidics , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[63]  Andrew D Griffiths,et al.  Selective droplet coalescence using microfluidic systems. , 2012, Lab on a chip.

[64]  Dhananjay Dendukuri,et al.  The Synthesis and Assembly of Polymeric Microparticles Using Microfluidics , 2009 .

[65]  Yining Wu,et al.  Active control of ferrofluid droplet breakup dynamics in a microfluidic T-junction , 2015 .

[66]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Numerical and experimental investigations of the formation process of ferrofluid droplets , 2011 .

[67]  Zhiping Wang,et al.  Control of Ferrofluid Droplets in Microchannels by Uniform Magnetic Fields , 2016, IEEE Magnetics Letters.

[68]  Huaizhi Li,et al.  Breakup dynamics for high‐viscosity droplet formation in a flow‐focusing device: Symmetrical and asymmetrical ruptures , 2016 .

[69]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Programmable two-dimensional actuation of ferrofluid droplet using planar microcoils , 2010 .

[70]  Shuichi Shoji,et al.  Active microdroplet merging by hydrodynamic flow control using a pneumatic actuator-assisted pillar structure. , 2014, Lab on a chip.

[71]  Mais J. Jebrail,et al.  Digital microfluidics: a versatile tool for applications in chemistry, biology and medicine. , 2012, Lab on a chip.

[72]  Armand Ajdari,et al.  Droplet Control for Microfluidics , 2005, Science.

[73]  J. Viovy,et al.  Selective handling of droplets in a microfluidic device using magnetic rails , 2015 .

[74]  Zhongze Gu,et al.  Spherical colloidal photonic crystals. , 2014, Accounts of chemical research.

[75]  Sebastian Seiffert,et al.  Microfluidic Synthesis of Advanced Microparticles for Encapsulation and Controlled Release{ a Introduction Lab on a Chip , 2022 .

[76]  Dongxiao Shi,et al.  Numerical Simulation of a Falling Ferrofluid Droplet in a Uniform Magnetic Field by the VOSET Method , 2014 .

[77]  Michele Zagnoni,et al.  On-chip electrocoalescence of microdroplets as a function of voltage, frequency and droplet size. , 2009, Lab on a chip.

[78]  L. Molenkamp,et al.  High-temperature quantum Hall effect in finite gapped HgTe quantum wells , 2016, 1605.03342.

[79]  A. Manz,et al.  Revisiting lab-on-a-chip technology for drug discovery , 2012, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.

[80]  André R. Studart,et al.  Magnetic Transport, Mixing and Release of Cargo with Tailored Nanoliter Droplets , 2012, Advanced materials.

[81]  G. Whitesides,et al.  Formation of droplets and bubbles in a microfluidic T-junction-scaling and mechanism of break-up. , 2006, Lab on a chip.

[82]  Yining Wu,et al.  Magnetofluidic control of the breakup of ferrofluid droplets in a microfluidic Y-junction , 2016 .