Compound droplet manipulations on fiber arrays

Abstract

Recent works demonstrated that fiber arrays may constitue the basis of an open digital microfluidics. Various processes, such as droplet motion, fragmentation, trapping, release, mixing and encapsulation, may be achieved on fiber arrays. However, handling a large number of tiny droplets resulting from the mixing of several liquid components is still a challenge for developing microreactors, smart sensors or microemulsifying drugs. Here, we show that the manipulation of tiny droplets onto fiber networks allows for creating compound droplets with a high complexity level. Moreover, this cost-effective and flexible method may also be implemented with optical fibers in order to develop fluorescence-based biosensor.

Multiple droplets on a conical fiber: formation, motion, and droplet mergers

“…17,19,20,23,[28][29][30][31] Furthermore, previous works have examined the formation of multiple droplets via the Plateau-Rayleigh instability (PRI) of a film of liquid on a cylindrical fiber. 32,33 In addition, studies have examined wetting and coalescence of droplets on a fiber network with particular interest in droplet capture in textiles [34][35][36][37][38] However, there has been little work on the formation and interaction between multiple droplets as they traverse along a conical fiber beyond qualitative observations, 17,32,39 despite being prevalent in nature as illustrated in Fig. 1; a photograph of the Geranium robertianum fruit covered with dew drops.…”

Multiple droplets on a conical fiber: formation, motion, and droplet mergers

“…Furthermore, previous works have examined the formation of multiple droplets via the Plateau-Rayleigh instability (PRI) of a film of liquid on a cylindrical fiber [33,34]. In addition, studies have examined wetting and coalescence of droplets on a fiber network with particular interest in droplet capture in textiles [35][36][37][38][39] However, there has been little work on the formation and interaction between multiple droplets as they traverse along the fiber beyond qualitative observations [17,33,40], despite being prevalent in nature as illustrated in Figure 1; a photograph of the Geranium robertianum fruit covered with dew drops.…”

Droplet Fusion in Oil-in-Water Pickering Emulsions

“…Novel configurations, such as Janus droplets, can form under the extreme flow conditions achieved in microfluidic channels (Choi et al, 2013 ). These developments have rejuvenated interest in designing robust and convenient routes for fusing drops of immiscible liquids together on a scale larger than that achieved in microfluidic channels (Hasinovic and Friberg, 2011 ; Fryd and Mason, 2014 ; Weyer et al, 2015 ; Ge et al, 2017 ; Wei et al, 2017 ). In this brief report, we describe a new approach that uses nanoparticles to control the fabrication of drops with multiple compartments.…”