I am making Alginate microspheres using microfluidics technique and intend to do mechanical characterization like compression, deformability. However, I can hardly see the beads the microscope camera. I used water soluble dyes such a ink dye, food coloring. But it is not improving. It would be great if I could get some suggestions.
Did you try a cationic dye like Ortho Toluidine blue? It should bind to alginate electrostatically so you are sure it is with your alginate. Don't add too much as it uses the same charged sites that make up your microbeads.
I suggest trying to conjugate it with fluorescent dye as Rhodamine B, put 1 ml of your beads with 50 ul of 100 ug/ml Rhodamine B, let it under shacking overnight, then examine it under a fluorescence microscope or confocal microscope, this works with other types of nanoparticles, I hope this help. Goodluck.
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