Li, S orcid.org/0000-0001-5297-9079, Zeng, M orcid.org/0000-0002-8627-4146, Gaule, T et al. (2 more authors) (2017) Passive Picoinjection Enables Controlled Crystallization in a Droplet Microfluidic Device. Small, 13 (41). 1702154. ISSN 1613-6810
Abstract
Segmented flow microfluidic devices offer an attractive means of studying crystallization processes. However, while they are widely employed for protein crystallization, there are few examples of their use for sparingly soluble compounds due to problems with rapid device fouling and irreproducibility over longer run‐times. This article presents a microfluidic device which overcomes these issues, as this is constructed around a novel design of “picoinjector” that facilitates direct injection into flowing droplets. Exploiting a Venturi junction to reduce the pressure within the droplet, it is shown that passive injection of solution from a side‐capillary can be achieved in the absence of an applied electric field. The operation of this device is demonstrated for calcium carbonate, where highly reproducible results are obtained over long run‐times at high supersaturations. This compares with conventional devices that use a Y‐junction to achieve solution loading, where in‐channel precipitation of calcium carbonate occurs even at low supersaturations. This work not only opens the door to the use of microfluidics to study the crystallization of low solubility compounds, but the simple design of a passive picoinjector will find wide utility in areas including multistep reactions and investigation of reaction dynamics.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | calcium carbonate; crystallization; device fouling; microfluidics; picoinjector |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Molecular and Cellular Biology (Leeds) > Synthetic Biology (Leed) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemistry (Leeds) > Inorganic Chemistry (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Molecular & Nanoscale Physics |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/L015005/1 EPSRC EP/H005374/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 10 Aug 2017 11:26 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:33 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/smll.201702154 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:119960 |