Study of flow behaviors of droplet merging and splitting in microchannels using Micro-PIV measurement.

ABSTRACT: Droplet merging and splitting are important droplet manipulations in droplet-based microfluidics. However, the fundamental flow behaviors of droplets were not systematically studied. Hence, we designed two different microstructures to achieve droplet merging and splitting respectively, and quantitatively compared different flow dynamics in different microstructures for droplet merging and splitting via micro-particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) experiments. Some flow phenomena of droplets different from previous studies were observed during merging and splitting using a high-speed microscope. It was also found the obtained instantaneous velocity vector fields of droplets have significant influence on the droplets merging and splitting. For droplet merging, the probability of droplets coa

SUBMITTER: Shen F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5589143 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature