Droplet breakup mechanisms in premix membrane emulsification and related microfluidic channels

Uniform-sized PLA nanoparticles: preparation by premix membrane emulsification.

Nanoparticle size is crucial to drug release behavior and biodistribution in vivo, but few studies have been performed on biodegradable nanoparticles with narrow size distribution. In this note, uniform-sized nanoparticles were prepared by a facile method combining emulsion-solvent removal and premix membrane emulsification for the first time. After preparation of coarse emulsions, additional p...

Droplet breakup in an asymmetric microfluidic T junction.

Breakup of non-uniform droplets in an asymmetric T junction consisting of an inlet channel and two different-size outlet channels has been investigated numerically. Also, an analytical approach in the limit of the lubrication approximation has been extended to provide some analytical relations to study the system and verify the numerical results. Parameters that are important in the performance...

Viscoelastic Based Droplet Sorting in Microfluidic Channels

We present a passive droplet sorting technique based on intrinsic viscoelastic fluid properties dependent on inner and outer fluid phase viscosity ratio (k-value), droplet deformability, and viscoelastic properties. We demonstrate sorting rates of >200 Hz of both homogeneous and heterogeneous sized droplet populations between 40-100 μm‟s and enrichment rates as high as 99%. We demonstrate sorti...

Numerical Simulation of Droplet Dynamics in Membrane Emulsification Systems

An emulsion is a two-phase liquid system of two immiscible liquids, where the liquid with lower mass fraction is dispersed in form of small droplets in other surrounding liquid of higher mass fraction. Emulsions are widely used to produce sol–gel, drugs, synthetic materials, and food products. Based on the size of droplet, emulsions can be classified as micro and macro emulsion. Karbstein and S...

On the preparation of lecithin-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions by multi-stage premix membrane emulsification