Electrocoalescence of paired droplets encapsulated in double-emulsion drops

Abstract

We utilize an ac electric field to trigger the on-demand fusion of two aqueous cores inside water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double-emulsion drops. We attribute the coalescence phenomenon to field-induced structural polarization and breakdown of the stress balance at interfaces. This method provides not only accurate control over the reaction time of coalescence but also protection of the reaction from cross contamination.

A microscopic physical description of electrothermal‐induced flow for control of ion current transport in microfluidics interfacing nanofluidics

“…Electrohydrodynamics (EHDs) has been acquiring unprecedentedly increasing attention from the microfluidic community since the last two decades [4][5][6]. Traditional DC electroosmosis (EO) [7,8], electrowetting on dielectrics [9], injection EHD [10], conduction EHD [11], traveling-wave induction EHD [12][13][14][15], inducedcharge electroosmosis (ICEO) [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], dielectrophoresis (DEP) [25][26][27][28][29][30], electrothermal (ET) induced flow [31][32][33][34][35][36][37], and electroconvective instability (EI) [38][39][40] near a permselective membrane are all authoritative methodologies where electric fields are employed to actuate liquid solutions in miniaturization systems.…”

Flexible particle flow‐focusing in microchannel driven by droplet‐directed induced‐charge electroosmosis

“…To process samples with low number of particles, a concentration step is usually imperative to abate the sample volume to an effective range (nL to L) that microfluidic devices can handle [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In order to achieve above goals, a myriad of particle manipulation methods in microfluidic system, such as DC electrokinetics [7,8], AC electrohydrodynamics [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], dielectrophoresis [17][18][19], hydrodynamics [20][21][22][23], ultrasonic wave [24], magnetism [25] and ion concentration polarization [26][27][28][29] have been exploited in-depth.…”

On controlling the flow behavior driven by induction electrohydrodynamics in microfluidic channels

“…In the wake of development in lab‐on‐chip technology, novel microfluidic platforms for precise control of liquids at the micrometer scale become an important component for micro‐total‐analysis system . Conventional pressure‐driven flows scale poorly with device miniaturization, so lots of other approaches are developed to transport fluid samples in confined channels .…”