Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : November 07, 2019 - November 08, 2019
A system in which oil phase droplets containing water phase droplets are dispersed in the water phase is called W/O/W double emulsion (DE). DE is an indispensable material used in many industries, but it is difficult to obtain a uniform controlled DE. The flow focusing technique is used to generate uniform size bubbles and particles using only the fluid force. This method is useful in many industrial and medical applications, such as encapsulating biological molecules or drugs, and conducting chemical or biological analysis in micro scale. However, conditions for stable production of DE have not been fully established. In particular, the use of three phases to produce double emulsion droplets is more complicated than when two phases are used to produce an emulsion. In this study, a double emulsion formation system in microfluidic flow-focusing devices is discussed. In order to obtain size-controlled stable double emulsions, the effects of flow rates of each phase, and the effects of interface tension of each interface have been studied. The results obtained by changing the flow rate and the physicochemical properties of the solution were arranged in a dimensionless capillary number. We studied the conditions under which a monodispersed DE can be generated stably.
