Perfectly monodisperse microbubbling by capillary flow focusing.
Here we report a simple microfluidics phenomenon which allows the efficient mass production of micron size gas bubbles with a perfectly monodisperse and controllable diameter. It resorts on a self-excited breakup phenomenon (which locks at a certain frequency) of a short gas microligament coflowing in a focused liquid stream. In this work, we describe the physics of the phenomenon and obtain closed expressions for the bubble diameter as a function of the liquid and gas properties, geometry, and flow parameters, from a large set of experimental results.
Gañán-Calvo
A M
AM
Escuela Superior de Ingenieros, Universidad de Sevilla, Camino de los Descubrimientos s/n, 41092 Sevilla, Spain.
Gordillo
J M
JM
D001671:Biochemistry / Q000379:methods; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D005740:Gases / Q000737:chemistry*
D005740:Gases