Porter, GCE orcid.org/0000-0001-8027-6549, Sikora, SNF orcid.org/0000-0002-8560-8837, Shim, J-U orcid.org/0000-0003-4577-1952 et al. (2 more authors) (2020) On-chip density-based sorting of supercooled droplets and frozen droplets in continuous flow. Lab on a Chip, 20 (21). pp. 3876-3887. ISSN 1473-0197
Abstract
The freezing of supercooled water to ice and the materials which catalyse this process are of fundamental interest to a wide range of fields. At present, our ability to control, predict or monitor ice formation processes is poor. The isolation and characterisation of frozen droplets from supercooled liquid droplets would provide a means of improving our understanding and control of these processes. Here, we have developed a microfluidic platform for the continuous flow separation of frozen from unfrozen picolitre droplets based on differences in their density, thus allowing the sorting of ice crystals and supercooled water droplets into different outlet channels with 94 ± 2% efficiency. This will, in future, facilitate downstream or off-chip processing of the frozen and unfrozen populations, which could include the analysis and characterisation of ice-active materials or the selection of droplets with a particular ice-nucleating activity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Molecular & Nanoscale Physics The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 648661 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jan 2021 12:47 |
Last Modified: | 08 Jan 2025 14:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) |
Identification Number: | 10.1039/d0lc00690d |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:169448 |