This research reports a microfluidic device for producing small droplets via a microorifice and a T-junction structure. The orifice is fabricated using an isotropic undercut etching process of amorphous glass materials. Since the equivalent hydraulic diameter of the produced microorifice can be as small as 1.1 m, the microdevice can easily produce droplets of the size smaller than 10 m in diameter. In addition, a permanent hydrophobic coating technique is also applied to modify the main channel to be hydrophobic to enhance the formation of water-based droplets. Experimental results show that the developed microfluidic chip with the ultrasmall orifice can steadily produce water-in-oil droplets with different sizes. Uniform water-in-oil droplets with the size from 60 m to 6.5 m in diameter can be formed by adjusting the flow rate ratio of the continuous phase and the disperse phases from 1 to 7. Moreover, curable linear polymer of chitosan droplets with the size smaller than 100 m can also be successfully produced using the developed microchip device. The microfluidic T-junction with a micro-orifice developed in the present study provides a simple yet efficient way to produce various droplets of different sizes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.