Encapsulation of microparticles in droplets has profound applications in biochemical assays. We investigate encapsulation of rigid particles (polystyrene beads) and deformable particles (biological cells) inside aqueous droplets in various droplet generation regimes, namely, squeezing, dripping, and jetting. Our study reveals that the size of the positive (particle-encapsulating) droplets is larger or smaller compared to that of the negative (empty) droplets in the dripping and jetting regimes but no size contrast is observed in the squeezing regime. The size contrast of the positive and negative droplets in the different regimes is characterized in terms of capillary number and stream width ratio (i.e., ratio of stream width at the throat to particle diameter ). While for deformable particles, the positive droplets are always larger compared to the negative droplets, for rigid particles, the positive droplets are larger in the dripping and jetting regimes for but smaller in the jetting regime for . We exploit the size contrast of positive and negative droplets for sorting across the fluid–fluid interface based on noninertial lift force (at ), which is a strong function of droplet size. We demonstrate sorting of the positive droplets encapsulating polystyrene beads and biological cells from the negative droplets with an efficiency of ∼95% and purity of ∼65%. The proposed study will find relevance in single-cell studies, where positive droplets need to be isolated from the empty droplets prior to downstream processing.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
May 14 2019
Droplet encapsulation of particles in different regimes and sorting of particle-encapsulating-droplets from empty droplets
K. S. Jayaprakash;
K. S. Jayaprakash
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
, Chennai 600036, India
Search for other works by this author on:
A. K. Sen
A. K. Sen
a)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
, Chennai 600036, India
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: ashis@iitm.ac.in
Search for other works by this author on:
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: ashis@iitm.ac.in
Biomicrofluidics 13, 034108 (2019)
Article history
Received:
March 21 2019
Accepted:
April 29 2019
Citation
K. S. Jayaprakash, A. K. Sen; Droplet encapsulation of particles in different regimes and sorting of particle-encapsulating-droplets from empty droplets. Biomicrofluidics 1 May 2019; 13 (3): 034108. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5096937
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Citing articles via
Microfluidics for foodborne bacteria analysis: Moving toward multiple technologies integration
Gaowa Xing, Jin-Ming Lin
Wicking pumps for microfluidics
Behrouz Aghajanloo, Wil Losereewanich, et al.
Lab-on-a-chip models of cardiac inflammation
Anna Maria Popovic, Matthew Ho Cheong Lei, et al.
Related Content
Diamagnetic droplet microfluidics applied to single-cell sorting
AIP Advances (July 2019)
One-step fabrication of 3D silver paste electrodes into microfluidic devices for enhanced droplet-based cell sorting
AIP Advances (May 2015)
Microfluidic pumps for cell sorting
Biomicrofluidics (September 2023)
Automated single cell sorting and deposition in submicroliter drops
Appl. Phys. Lett. (August 2014)
Fluorescence activated cell sorting via focused traveling surface acoustic waves (FTSAWs)
J Acoust Soc Am (May 2017)