Droplet Breakup in Expansion-contraction Microchannels

Zhu, Pingan; Kong, Tiantian; Lei, Lijie; Tian, Xiaowei; Kang, Zhanxiao; Wang, Liqiu

doi:10.1038/srep21527

Cited by 30 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…Astonishingly, rear pinch-off inside the nozzle produces satellite drops with descending size distribution ( Fig. 5f ), which are similar to those generated by the tip-multi-breaking, a recently reported droplet breakup mode 44 45 . Despite their non-uniformity, the satellites depend on oscillation, which may provide an additional handle to harness the formation of droplets with various volumes, a required feature in some applications.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 73%

Pinch-off of microfluidic droplets with oscillatory velocity of inner phase flow

Zhu

Tang

Tian

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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When one liquid is introduced into another immiscible one, it ultimately fragments due to hydrodynamic instability. In contrast to neck pinch-off without external actuation, the viscous two-fluid system subjected to an oscillatory flow demonstrates higher efficiency in breaking fluid threads. However, the underlying dynamics of this process is less well understood. Here we show that the neck-thinning rate is accelerated by the amplitude of oscillation. By simply evaluating the momentum transfer from external actuation, we derive a dimensionless pre-factor to quantify the accelerated pinch-off. Our data ascribes the acceleration to the non-negligible inner fluid inertia, which neutralizes the inner phase viscous stress that retards the pinch-off. Moreover, we characterize an equivalent neck-thinning behavior between an actuated system and its unactuated counterpart with decreased viscosity ratio. Finally, we demonstrate that oscillation is capable of modulating satellite droplet formation by shifting the pinch-off location. Our study would be useful for manipulating fluids at microscale by external forcing.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 73%

Pinch-off of microfluidic droplets with oscillatory velocity of inner phase flow

Zhu

Tang

Tian

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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“…Water droplets greater than 100 behave similar to a flat surface of liquid (Ho 1997), while droplets smaller than this size tend to behave as discontinuous phase. Recently, Zhu et al (2016) demonstrated how glycerol-water mixture breaks into smaller droplets as it moves through both expanding and contracting microcapillaries containing oil as the second phase (Figure 9). Creation of droplets in microcapillary has been covered extensively in a review by Baroud et al (2010).…”

Section: Evaporationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figure 9: Influence of expanding-contracting microchannels on water droplet: a) schematic of microcapillary device (not on scale), b) droplets produced in sequence with decreasing size distribution 2, 4, 6, 8-drops, respectively. c) image of the expansioncontraction microchannel, and d) droplets produced with increasing orifice distance (from Zhu et al 2016).…”

Section: Evaporationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical review of water uptake by shales

Singh

2016

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

231

146

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The shale boom in North America started more than a decade ago, however, the issue of substantial fracturing fluid loss inside shale did not draw much attention for a decade. In the past few years, many researchers conducted laboratory experiments to 1) observe various processes by which water imbibes into shale rocks, and 2) understand the mechanisms behind each process that contributes to fluid uptake in shale. Although there is consistency in most of the observations that control the liquid filling in shales, some issues remain in regards to wettability. Many mechanisms seem to be contributing to liquid filling in the laboratory experiments, but there is no consensus on the dominant mechanisms. Even though some observations from field provide consistent signatures, we do not yet have a verified answer for the geo-mechanisms behind those observations. This paper provides a critical review of the observations (laboratory and field), the mechanisms behind those observations, and the models to mimic the imbibition behavior of shales. In this regard, following contents are critically reviewed: 1) history of imbibition in shales, 2) laboratory observations, 3) field observations, 4) mechanisms of water imbibition in shales, and 5) simulation models. We also discuss evaporation of water in shale as an additional mechanism that has not been proposed before, but may be contributing to the loss of water in shale formations.

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“…Until now, it offers the feasibility of handling miniature volumes, better mixing, encapsulation, sorting , and sensing—all of these are suitable for high‐throughput experiments . Despite its characteristic advantages in high‐throughput applications, benefits from the advantages of droplet‐based microfluidics requires a universal and comprehensive understanding of droplet generation to perform various logical operations such as sorting , merging , and breaking . This is one of the reasons it is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of research combining soft matter physics , biochemistry , and microsystems engineering .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Droplet‐based microfluidics systems in biomedical applications

Feng

Zheng

et al. 2019

Electrophoresis

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Microfluidics has made a very impressive progress in the past decades due to its unique and instinctive advantages. Droplet‐based microfluidic systems show excellent compatibility with many chemical and biological reagents and are capable of performing variety of operations that can implement microreactor, complex multiple core–shell structure, and many applications in biomedical research such as drug encapsulation, targeted drug delivery systems, and multifunctionalization on carriers. Droplet‐based systems have been directly used to synthesize particles and encapsulate many biological entities for biomedicine applications due to their powerful encapsulation capability and facile versatility. In this paper, we review its origin, deviation, and evolution to draw a clear future, especially for droplet‐based biomedical applications. This paper will focus on droplet generation, variations and complication as starter, and logistically lead to the numerous typical applications in biomedical research. Finally, we will summarize both its challenge and future prospects relevant to its droplet‐based biomedical applications.

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Droplet Breakup in Expansion-contraction Microchannels

Cited by 30 publications

References 47 publications

Pinch-off of microfluidic droplets with oscillatory velocity of inner phase flow

Pinch-off of microfluidic droplets with oscillatory velocity of inner phase flow

A critical review of water uptake by shales

Droplet‐based microfluidics systems in biomedical applications

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