Microfluidic large-scale integration on a chip for mass production of monodisperse droplets and particles†
Abstract
In this study, we report the mass production of monodisperse emulsion droplets and particles using microfluidic large-scale integration on a chip. The production module comprises a glass microfluidic chip with planar microfabricated 16–256 droplet-formation units (DFUs) and a palm-sized stainless steel holder having several layers for supplying liquids into the inlets of the mounted chip. By using a module having 128 cross-junctions (i.e., 256 DFUs) arranged circularly on a 4 cm × 4 cm chip, we could produce droplets of photopolymerizable acrylate monomer at a throughput of 320.0 mL h−1. The product was monodisperse, having a mean diameter of 96.4 µm, with a coefficient of variation (