Internal flow in droplets within a concentrated emulsion flowing in a microchannel

Abstract

Droplet microfluidics has enabled a wide variety of high-throughput biotechnical applications through the use of monodisperse micro-droplets as bioreactors. Previous fluid dynamics studies of droplet microfluidics have focused on single droplets or emulsions at low volume fractions. The study of concentrated emulsions at high volume fractions is important for further increasing the throughput of droplet microfluidics, but the fluid dynamics of such emulsions in confined microchannels is not well understood. This paper describes the use of microscopic particle image velocimetry to quantify the flow inside individual droplets within a concentrated emulsion having volume fraction φ ∼ 85% flowing as a monolayer in a straight microfluidic channel. The effects of confinement (namely, the number of rows of droplets across the width of the channel) and viscosity ratio on the internal flow patterns inside the drops at a fixed capillary number of 10−3 and a Reynolds number of 10−2 to 10−1 are studied. The results show that rotational structures inside the droplets always exist and are independent of viscosity ratio for the conditions tested. The structures depend on droplet mobility, the ratio of the velocity of the droplet to the velocity of the continuous phase. These values, in turn, depend on the confinement of the emulsion and the location of the droplets in the channel. Although this work presents two-dimensional measurements at the mid-height of the microchannel only, the results reveal flow patterns that are never described before in single drops or dilute emulsions.