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Microfluidics is capable of generating monodisperse, single emulsion droplets with precise control and operations. It has been a powerful tool for fabricating complex systems (microparticles, microcapsules, microgels) with uniform size, narrow size distribution and desired properties, showing great potential in cosmetics, foods and pharmaceuticals applications. As a leader in microfluidic chip development, Creative Biolabs is dedicated to establishing the most exquisite microfluidic platform and providing one-stop microfluidic solutions for the formation of single emulsions with high throughput and precision.

Introduction of Single Emulsions

As the simplest form of emulsions, single emulsions consist of a liquid droplet dispersed in a different fluid and are often stabilized with surfactants. The basic forms of single emulsions include water-in-oil (W/O) and oil-in-water (O/W). They are frequently used as vessels for tissue engineering, biosensing, drug delivery and drug release. Especially, single emulsions can function as a compartment to conduct biochemical reactions in small volumes or to perform screening assays at high throughputs while consuming minimal sample volumes. For instance, single-cell emulsion techniques employ W/O single emulsions in which a large aqueous droplet containing cells and reagents is surrounded by oil.

Microfluidics-based Single Emulsions Formation

The applications of single emulsions depend on their properties which correlate with their size, structure, composition and configuration. Therefore, it is essential to fabricate single emulsions in a controlled manner to improve their pharmaceutical capability and reliability for biological studies. In contrary to continuous flow systems, microfluidics deals with discrete droplets to produce single emulsions with precise control of their volume and composition, restricted dispersion and limited cross-contamination. The high monodisperse single emulsions present narrow size distribution (less than 1% size variation) and improved encapsulation efficiency.

Fig. 1 Microfluidic droplet generation.¹

Droplet Microfluidic Device for Single Emulsions Formation

Droplet microfluidics is one of the most effective techniques for the tailored fabrication of single emulsions. It offers exquisite control over the flows of multiple fluids in microscale, enabling the fabrication of advanced microparticles with precisely tunable structures and compositions in a high throughput manner.

• Capillary microfluidic devices

Capillary microfluidic devices have been widely used to form monodisperse emulsions with the advantage of high chemical resistance and ideal coaxial flow-focusing which enables the preparation of droplets with a wide range of material compositions and structures. It is simple and highly robust, only involving simply assembling basic modules including injection tube, transition tube, and collection tube.

• PDMS microfluidic devices

Lithographically fabricated poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) has the advantage of preparing a large number of identical devices for large-scale emulsions production. They are prepared by soft lithography which enables the formation of identical devices through replica molding. PDMS microfluidic devices have greater flexibility in the channel design and show higher microscale resolution.

Featured Services at Creative Biolabs

With years of experience and advanced microfluidic platforms, Creative Biolabs pioneers the use of microfluidic devices for single emulsions control and analysis. Our microfluidic chip can precisely control the size of droplets either by passive ways through tuning the geometry of microfluidic devices, the properties of two liquid phases (viscosity and interfacial tension) and the operating parameters (flow rates of two phases, pressure, etc.) or by active methods through electrical forces, temperature, magnetic force, optical manipulation and acoustic force. The size variation is usually less than 1% and the encapsulation efficiency is up to 100%.

Creative Biolabs is pleased to offer the best-qualified microfluidic chip development service to meet our customers' requirements for highly controlled and high-throughput single emulsion formation. If you are interested in our services, please do not hesitate to contact us for more detailed information.

Reference

1. Azzopardi. " Dispositifs microfluidiques pour l’injection de fluides à travers un réseau de gouttes: application biocapteur." Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté. 1 (2018).

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.