Shell microparticles of morphology controlled and inner-modified hole from sequential inkjet-printed double emulsions

This article presents sequential inkjet-based method to produce double emulsions as templates to fabricate morphology-controlled and inner-modified hole-shell microparticles. This sequential printing strategy for producing double emulsions circumvents complex wettability modification of the microchannels in lithography-based microfluidic device and largely saves the reagent in comparison to the coaxial two-phase jet in glass capillary. The formation of hole-shell structures is attributed to the diffusion of solvent out of droplets into butanol at the interface between oil and extract phase. The change of hole size is controlled by different diffusion rate, which is determined by changing the volume ratio of butanol and alcohol in extract phase.This presented flexible method can fabricate some functionalized microparticles in our future work.

Determination of ammonium on an integrated microchip with LED-induced fluorescence detection

A simply fabricated microfluidic device integrated with a fluorescence detection system has been developed for on-line determination of ammonium in aqueous samples. A 365-nm light-emitting diode （LED） as an excitation source and a minor band pass filter were mounted into a polydimethylsiloxane （PDMS）-based microchip for the purpose of miniaturization of the entire analytical system. The ammonium sample reacted with o-phthaldialdehyde （OPA） on-chip with sodium sulfite as reducing reagent to produce a fluorescent isoindole derivative, which can emit fluorescence signal at about 425 nm when excited at 365 nm. Effects of pH, flow rate of solutions, concentrations of OPA-reagent, phosphate and sulfite salt were investigated. The calibration curve of ammonium in the range of 0.018- 1.8 μg/mL showed a good linear relationship with R2 = 0.9985, and the detection limit was （S /N = 3） 3.6 × 10 4 μg/mL. The relative standard deviation was 2.8% （n = 11） by calculating at 0.18 μg/mL ammonium for repeated detection. The system was applied to determine the ammonium concentration in rain and river waters, even extent to other analytes fluorescence detection by the presented device.

A chemo-mechanical switchable valve on microfluidic chip based on a thermally responsive block copolymer

Microfluidic devices have become a powerful tool for chemical and biologic applications.To control different functional parts on the microchip,valve plays a key role in the device.In conventional methods,physio-mechanical valves are usually used on microfluidic chip.Herein,we reported a chemo-mechanical switchable valve on microfluidic chip by using a thermally responsive block copolymer.The wettability changes of capillary with copolymer modification on inner surface were investigated to verify the function as a valve.Capillaries with modification of poly-(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-hexafluoroisopropyl acrylate)(P(NIPAAm-co-HFIPA))with a 20%HFIPA was demonstrated capable of control aqueous solution stop or go through.Then short capillaries with copolymer modification were integrated in microchannels as valves.With the temperature changing around lower critical solution temperature(LCST),the integrated chemo-mechanical switchable valve exhibited excellent“OPEN–CLOSE”behavior for microflow control.After optimization of the block copolymer sequences and molar ratio,a switching time as low as 20 s was achieved.The developed micro valve was demonstrated effective for flow control on microchip.