Developing heatable microfluidic chip to generate gelatin emulsions and microcapsules

Abstract

The heatable microfluidic chip developed herein successfully integrates a microheater and flow-focusing device to generate uniform-sized gelatin emulsions under various flow rate ratios (sample phase/oil phase, Q s/Q o) and driven voltages. The gelatin emulsions can be applied to encapsulate vitamin C for drug release. Our goal is to create the thermal conditions for thermo-sensitive hydrogel materials in the microfluidic chip and generate continuous and uniform emulsions under any external environment. The gelatin emulsion sizes have a coefficient of variation of <5 % and can be precisely controlled by altering the flow rate ratio (Q s/Q o) and driven voltage. The gelatin emulsion diameters range from 45 to 120 μm. Moreover, various sizes of these gelatin microcapsules containing vitamin C were used for drug release. The developed microfluidic chip has the advantages of a heatable platform in the fluid device, active control over the emulsion diameter, the generation of uniform-sized emulsions, and simplicity. This new approach for gelatin microcapsules will provide many potential applications in drug delivery and pharmaceuticals.