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. 2018 Oct 5;8(60):34343-34349.
doi: 10.1039/c8ra06022c. eCollection 2018 Oct 4.

An efficient strategy for a controllable droplet merging system for digital analysis

Yi Qiao  1 , Jiye Fu  1 , Fang Yang  1 , Mengqin Duan  1 , Mengting Huang  1 , Jing Tu  1 , Zuhong Lu  1
Affiliations

An efficient strategy for a controllable droplet merging system for digital analysis

Yi Qiao et al. RSC Adv. .

Abstract

Droplet merging is an important part of droplet manipulation approaches. Droplet merging methods with expansions inside channels can merge droplets in pairs through simple structures. However, they have a low success rate of merging under unstable fluidic conditions since the one-to-one pairing strategy is sensitive to fluctuation. This study presents a one-to-a-cluster pairing strategy to improve the success rate of merging under fluctuation. The one-to-a-cluster method was suitable for digital analysis and droplet MDA was performed in merged droplets successfully.

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Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. The microfluidic device for droplet coalescence.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Different droplet merging strategies (a) one to a cluster and (b) one to one.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Different droplet merging strategies. (a) Reinjected droplets merging with droplets generated on-chip, (b) two series of reinjected droplets, merging one-to-one, and (c) two series of reinjected droplets, merging one-to-a-cluster.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Success rate of the one-to-one and one-to-a-cluster merging strategy under different fluctuations.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. Distance between the adjacent droplets right before merging. (a) The one-to-one merging strategy and (b) the one-to-a-cluster strategy.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6. Brightness and volume distributions of droplets (a) after one-to-one merging. The inserted figure is the distribution before merging. (b) After one-to-a-cluster merging. The inserted figure is the distributions before merging.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7. (a) Volume of droplets as a function of velocity ratio between large and small droplets, (b) proportion of added substance in merged droplet as a function of velocity ratio between large and small droplets, (c) the relationship of brightness and the concentration of dye (normalized).
Fig. 8
Fig. 8. Fluorescence image of droplets after MDA (scale bar, 80 μm).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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