Abstract
Hydrogel-based microfluidics offers the intrinsic hydrophilicity of the embossed microfluidic channels. The previous work on hydrogel-based microfluidics usually has limited access to small features. Here, we offer a solution to fabricate gelatin-based microfluidics device with the feature sizes smaller than 100 µm. The fabrication was straightforward, using gelatin and riboflavin solution, without requiring the chemical functionalization of gelatin towards gelatin methacrylate. The mechanical and thermal stability of gelatin was improved by exposing the gelatin–riboflavin mixture under blue light, which induced chemical crosslinking by photooxidation. The devices were stable enough to produce oil-in-water droplets and oil-in-oil-in-water double emulsions for demanded applications.
References
Abate AR, Krummel AT, Lee D, Marquez M, Holtze C, Weitz DA (2008) Lab Chip 8:2157
Bauer WAC, Fischlechner M, Abell C, Huck WTS (2010) Lab Chip 10:1814
Chen CH, Shah RK, Abate AR, Weitz DA (2009) Langmuir 25:4320
Chen Q, Feng Y, Zhang D, Zhang G, Fan Q, Sun S, Zhu D (2010) Adv Funct Mater 20:36
Chen MB, Srigunapalan S, Wheeler AR, Simmons CA (2013) Lab Chip 13:2591
Golden AP, Tien J (2007) Lab Chip 7:720
Ma S, Natoli M, Liu X, Neubauer MP, Watt FM, Fery A, Huck WTS (2013) J Mater Chem B 1:5128
Ma S, Sherwood JM, Huck WTS, Balabani S (2014) Lab Chip 14:3611
McCall AS, Kraft S, Edelhauser HF, Kidder GW, Lundquist RR, Bradshaw HE, Dedeic Z, Dionne MJ, Clement EM, Conrad GW (2009) Invest Ophthalmol Visual Sci 51:129
Nie J, Gao Q, Wang Y, Zeng J, Zhao H, Sun Y, Shen J, Ramezani H, Fu Z, Liu Z, Xiang M, Fu J, Zhao P, Chen W, He Y (2018) Small 1802368:1802368
Paguirigan A, Beebe DJ (2006) Lab Chip 6:407
Raghavan SR, Douglas JF (2012) Soft Matter 8:8539
Siqueira-Moura MP, Franceschi-Messant S, Blanzat M, Ré MI, Perez E, Rico-Lattes I, Lattes A, Tedesco AC (2013) J Colloid Interface Sci 401:155
Sun Y, Jin L, Wang H, Yang Y (2011) Soft Matter 7:348
Theberge AB, Courtois F, Schaerli Y, Fischlechner M, Abell C, Hollfelder F, Huck WTS (2010) Angew Chem Int Ed 49:5846
Xia Y, Whitesides GM (1998) Annu Rev Mater Sci 28:153
Yu H, Huang Q (2012) J Agric Food Chem 60:5373
Zhu Y, Shi J, Shen W, Dong X, Feng J, Ruan M, Li Y (2005) Angew Chem Int Ed 44:5083
Acknowledgements
The work is funded by Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Precision Medicine and Healthcare, Grant number: SDRC [2015]1950. The work is also funded by the Scientific Research Start-Up Fund of Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ma, S. Gelatin-based microfluidics device with the feature sizes smaller than 100 µm for production of oil-in-water emulsions. Microfluid Nanofluid 23, 35 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-019-2203-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-019-2203-4