Dielectrophoresis Response of Water-in-Oil-in-Water Double Emulsion Droplets with Singular or Dual Cores

Microfluidic technologies have enabled generation of exquisite multiple emulsion droplets, which have been used in many fields, including single-cell assays, micro-sized chemical reactions, and material syntheses. Electrical controlling is an important technique for droplet manipulation in microflui...

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Published inMicromachines (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 12; p. 1121
Main Authors Jiang, Tianyi, Jia, Yankai, Sun, Haizhen, Deng, Xiaokang, Tang, Dewei, Ren, Yukun
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland MDPI AG 17.12.2020
MDPI
Subjects
Aqueous solutions
Chemical reactions
Dielectrophoresis
double emulsions
droplet manipulation
Droplets
Electric fields
Electrical resistivity
Electrodes
Glass substrates
Investigations
Microfluidics
multiple droplets
Polyvinyl alcohol
Simulation
Water drops
United States > US
dielectrophoresis
double emulsions
droplet manipulation
multiple droplets
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Summary:Microfluidic technologies have enabled generation of exquisite multiple emulsion droplets, which have been used in many fields, including single-cell assays, micro-sized chemical reactions, and material syntheses. Electrical controlling is an important technique for droplet manipulation in microfluidic systems, but the dielectrophoretic behaviors of multiple emulsion droplets in electrical fields are rarely studied. Here, we report on the dielectrophoresis response of double emulsion droplets in AC electric fields in microfluidic channel. A core-shell model is utilized for analyzing the polarization of droplet interfaces and the overall dielectrophoresis (DEP) force. The water-in-oil-in-water droplets, generated by glass capillary devices, experience negative DEP at low field frequency. At high frequency, however, the polarity of DEP is tunable by adjusting droplet shell thickness or core conductivity. Then, the behavior of droplets with two inner cores is investigated, where the droplets undergo rotation before being repelled or attracted by the strong field area. This work should benefit a wide range of applications that require manipulation of double emulsion droplets by electric fields.
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ISSN:2072-666X
2072-666X
DOI:10.3390/mi11121121