Interfacial Tension-Mediated Droplet Fusion in Rectangular Microchannels

초록

We successfully demonstrate the merging of aqueous droplets within a microfluidic channel mediated by a difference in interfacial tension. Interfacial tension is shown to have a significant influence on the hydrodynamic forces associated with a segmented flow in a rectangular microchannel and results in the possibility of merging multiple droplets in a simple fashion. This facility is important in allowing droplet-based microfluidic systems to be used as synthetic tools in complex reaction processing.

키워드