Numerical simulation and experiment of droplet formation in circular cross-section micro-channels

Abstract

In recent decades, microfluidics in biological applications have experienced significant growth due to their advantages of small volume, low cost, short reaction time and high throughput. Almost all cross-section shapes of micro-channels in microfluidic chips are rectangular or triangular by the existing chip fabricating technologies, including hot embossing, lithography, etching and injection molding, etc. However, compared with the above micro-channel shapes, the circular one has the advantages in aspects of fluid flow, droplet generating, heat transfer and its replication for blood vessels. This paper presents a T-junction droplet microfluidic chip with circular cross-section micro-channels. The effect of micro-channel wettability, interfacial tension, velocity and flow rate of continuous phase on droplet size are simulated and mechanism of droplets generating process is explored. Comparing with continuous phase viscosity and interfacial tension, flow rate plays a decisive role in determining the droplet size which is in the range of 100–350 [Formula: see text]m according to the simulation result. The Capillary number is affected by the above three parameters and an estimating numerical method for generated droplet size was proposed according to the above simulation results and calculated by Capillary number. The droplets, the sizes of which were in the range of 20–400 [Formula: see text]m, were produced by varying the parameters of water and oil flow rates in the designed T-junction droplet microfluidic chip with circular cross-section micro-channels.