Abstract
Anti-solvent crystallization behavior of triphenylmethanol, a multifactorial problem, was studied utilizing a droplet-based microfluidic device by integrating the in-situ visualization and off-line analyses. We successfully mitigated the adsorption and aggregation of crystals at the interface by adding the surfactant in microdroplets, obtaining high-quality crystals with the smaller median size (D50) reduced by 29% and narrower crystal size distribution (CSD) compared to samples without surfactant added. This study systematically investigated the effects of surfactant, initial concentration of solute and anti-solvent content on the crystal size, CSD and the crystal number per droplet. The phase diagram consisting of microdroplets array was constructed, clearly dividing the unsaturated zone and nucleation zone. The microfluidic chip with features of mixing and dispersing was designed, expanding the microfluidics application in rapid nucleation systems. The basic data we provided pave the way for further research on the metastable zone width, kinetics and thermodynamics of crystallization in microscale-confinement.
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