Flow focusing in microchannels

Formation of dispersions using ‘‘flow focusing’’ in microchannels

Fundamentals of inertial focusing in microchannels.

Inertial microfluidics has been attracting considerable interest in recent years due to immensely promising applications in cell biology. Despite the intense attention, the primary focus has been on development of inertial microfluidic devices with less emphasis paid to elucidation of the inertial focusing mechanics. The incomplete understanding, and sometimes confusing experimental results tha...

Inertial Focusing of Microparticles in Curvilinear Microchannels

A passive, continuous and size-dependent focusing technique enabled by "inertial microfluidics", which takes advantage of hydrodynamic forces, is implemented in this study to focus microparticles. The objective is to analyse the decoupling effects of inertial forces and Dean drag forces on microparticles of different sizes in curvilinear microchannels with inner radius of 800 μm and curvature a...

Synthesis of size-tunable polymeric nanoparticles enabled by 3D hydrodynamic flow focusing in single-layer microchannels.

Recently, polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted enormous attention as targeted drug delivery vehicles.[1-4] Especially, biodegradable and biocompatible polymeric NPs comprised of poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-b-polyethyleneglycol (PLGA-PEG) block copolymers exhibit optimal physicochemical characteristics such as the ability to incorporate various targeting agents, enhanced immune evasion, c...

Electroosmotic shear flow in microchannels.

We generate and study electroosmotic shear flow in microchannels. By chemically or electrically modifying the surface potential of the channel walls a shear flow component with controllable velocity gradient can be added to the electroosmotic flow caused by double layer effects at the channel walls. Chemical modification is obtained by treating the channel wall with a cationic polymer. In case ...