title: Magnetic resonance imaging of two-component liquid-liquid flow in a circular capillary tube.
abstract: Two-component liquid-liquid Poiseuille flow through a circular pipe with a "Y junction" has been investigated theoretically, but few experimental studies exist. Here we report a simple microfluidic two-component flow measurement in a capillary tube with magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI). Velocity mapping of both liquids has been achieved using spin-echo pure phase encoding techniques combined with chemical shift imaging. Images of 32 × 32 μm2 resolution were obtained for a channel of circular cross section (internal radius R=400 μm). The results are in agreement with the theoretical prediction of liquid-liquid flow. This report is to validate theoretical liquid-liquid Poiseuille velocity distribution predictions with a high-resolution MRI method. This MRI method is shown to be a versatile tool for the study of multicomponent flow in microfluidic systems.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada E3B 5A3.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Bruce J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Balcom