title: Controlled generation of double emulsions in air.
abstract: This Letter describes the controlled generation of double emulsions in the gas phase, which was carried out using an integrated emitter in a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfluidic chip. The integrated emitter was formed using a molding approach, in which metal wires with desirable diameters were used as emitter molds. The generation of double emulsions in air was achieved with electrohydrodynamics actuation, which offers controllable force exerting on the double emulsions. We developed this capability for future integration of droplet microfluidics with mass spectrometry (MS), where each aqueous droplet in the microchannel is introduced into the gas phase as a double emulsion for subsequent ionization and MS analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-17000, USA.
authors.forename: Dingsheng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Bejan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hakimi
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Volny
authors.forename: Joelle
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rolfs
authors.forename: Xudong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Frantisek
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Turecek
authors.forename: Daniel T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Chiu
mesh_terms: D000388:Air / Q000032:analysis*; D004655:Emulsions / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004655:Emulsions