Hi!
We realise the dripping in our microfluid chip (the + cross).
Yet we wonder how can we control our droplet size to ~=70um sphere (the channel is a semicircle in 70um diameter)
Can we calculate the drop size, using Weber number and capillary number or any other parameter?
Thanks!
Dear Zonghan Gan
The size of the droplets depends on several factors.
Fluid Type - Inlet fluid velocity and shape of microchannel geometry
We have worked on this subject and we can help you.
Dear all, please check the following documents. My Regards
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2019.110606
https://www.fluigent.com/resources/microfluidic-expertise/microfluidic-droplets/microfluidic-droplet-production-method/
This RG document may be interesting. My Regards
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223144873_Influence_of_Oil_Type_and_Viscosity_on_Droplet_Size_in_a_Flow_Focusing_Microfluidic_Device
Droplet–based microfluidic assisted devices have proposed an extensive interest in many applications such as lab-on-a-chip technologies as well as chemical/biological/nanomaterial preparation, chemical engineering, drug delivery, tissue engineering and biosensing. Here, a computational fluid dynamic model was developed for deep understanding of the droplet size and formation in a flow-focusing (FF) microchannel with consideration of the continuous phase (non–Newtonian fluid). The simulations presented an alternative method to achieve insights into this complicated process. In the following for the first time, the role of channel geometry, channel aspect ratio and flow rate ratio on droplet features including the mechanism of droplet formation, diameter/volume of droplet, velocity/amount of droplet formation, and final shape/size of the generated droplets were fully described. These findings could remarkably derive desirable protocols to control droplets characteristics comprising their size and shape in non–Newtonian fluids. Moreover, level set (LS) method was used for scrutinizing the droplet-breaking procedure in the microfluidic FF devices. The results showed that different droplet sizes could be prepared with changing the various parameters, demonstrating many challenges in various applications including lab-on-a-chip, cell encapsulation, drug delivery, tissue engineering, biosensing and bioimaging could be successfully addressed.
The electric field leads to a significant reduction of the droplet diameter, by about a factor of 2 in the case of water droplets. The droplet size can be tuned by varying the electric field strength, an effect that can be employed to produce a stream of droplets with a tailor-made size sequence.
The Fluigent Droplet Starter Pack Fluigent Droplet generation pack allows you to easily generate droplet with a total control of the droplet size and frequency. The droplet generation pack provides all items needed to generate droplets, including pressure controllers to the chip and surfactant.
In this pack, Fluigent gives you:
The pressure controllers: Flow EZ
The flow sensors: Flow Unit
The Droplet generation chip: EZ-Drop
The continuous phase with surfactant: dSURF
Tubing pack with reservoir
Thanks all! If I merely upregulate water flow rate in a small region, how will the droplet size change correspondingly?
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Engineering
- Thermal Engineering
- Thermofluid
- Fluid Mechanics