Microfluidic emulsion characterization for the development of armored droplet arrays

An experimental study was performed to determine the best method for using a flow-focusing device to produce monodisperse water droplets in a polymer flow with sufficient spacing to polymerize a protective shell around the droplets using continuous flow lithography. Contact angle measurements and surface tension measurements were used to determine how wettable the polymer is with respect to water and PDMS. Polymerization reaction kinetics tests were used to determine a suitable polymer for the system. The droplet size and spacing for different flow-focusing devices with different dimensions were characterized to determine the best dimensions. Finally, characterization tests for various polymer and water flow rates were performed to examine the droplet size, spacing, velocity and frequency of production, as well as the fluctuations and instabilities in the system. From these characterization tests it was determined that the best flow systems for armoring droplets arise when the water flow rate is greater than 0.05pL/min, the polymer flow rate is between 0.4 and 1.2pL/min and the flow-rate ration of water to polymer is less than 1:10.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Maltas, Stephen K

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Darrell Irvine and Patrick Doyle.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35060

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35060