Droplet formation behavior in a microfluidic device fabricated by hydrogel molding 2014.pdf

RESEARCH PAPER Droplet formation behavior in a microfluidic device fabricated by hydrogel molding Takahiro Odera ? Hirotada Hirama ? Jo Kuroda ? Hiroyuki Moriguchi ? Toru Torii Received: 9 June 2013 / Accepted: 24 December 2013  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract We describe the behavior of droplet formation within 3D cross-junctions and 2D T-junctions with various cross-sectional geometries that were manually fabricated using the hydrogel-molding method. The method utilizes wire-shaped hydrogels as molds to construct 3D and 2D microchannel structures. We investigated the flow patterns and droplet formation within the microchannels of these microfluidic devices. Despite being fabricated manually, the microchannels with 3D cross-junctions and 2D T-junctions were reproducible and formed highly mon- odispersed droplets. Additionally, the sizes of the droplets formed within the microchannels could be predicted using an experimental formula. This technique of droplet for- mation involves the use of a device fabricated by hydrogel molding. This method is expected to facilitate studies on droplet microfluidics and promote the use of droplet-based lab-on-a-chip technologies for various applications. Keywords Droplet microfluidics  3D microchannel  Agarose gel  Lithography free  Polydimethylsiloxane 1 Introduction Droplet microfluidics has been studied for many decades (Kawakatsu et al. 1996), and numerous droplet formation methods, including the use of T-junctions (Thorsen et al. 2001; Nisisako et al. 2002; Okushima et al. 2004), flow- focusing (Anna et al. 2003; Utada et al. 2005; Nie et al. 2005), and electrostatic manipulation (Choi et al. 2007), have been developed for various applications, such as particle synthesis (Nisisako et al. 2004, 2012; Zhang et al. 2012; Hirama et al. 2013; Aketagawa et al. 2013; Mulu- neh and Issadore 2013) and theoretical studies of droplet formation in microchannels of various configurations (Kobayashi et al. 2004a; Samie