Microchannel emulsification for mass production of uniform fine droplets: integration of microchannel arrays on a chip |
| |
Authors: | Isao Kobayashi Yoshihiro Wada Kunihiko Uemura Mitsutoshi Nakajima |
| |
Affiliation: | (1) Food Engineering Division, National Food Research Institute, NARO, 2-1-12 Kannondai, Tsukuba Ibaraki, 305-8642, Japan;(2) EP Tech Co., Ltd., 2-4-1 Shiroganecho, Hitachi Ibaraki, 317-0056, Japan;(3) Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennoudai, Tsukuba Ibaraki, 305-8572, Japan |
| |
Abstract: | We present a novel microchannel emulsification (MCE) system for mass-producing uniform fine droplets. A 60 × 60-mm MCE chip
made of single-crystal silicon has 14 microchannel (MC) arrays and 1.2 × 104 MCs, and each MC array consists of many parallel MCs and a terrace. A holder with two inlet through-holes and one outlet
through-hole was also developed for simply infusing each liquid and collecting emulsion products. The MCE chip was sealed
well by physically attaching it to a flat glass plate in the holder during emulsification. Uniform fine droplets of soybean
oil with an average diameter of 10 μm were reliably generated from all the MC arrays. The size of the resultant fine droplets
was almost independent of the dispersed-phase flow rate below a critical value. The continuous-phase flow rate was unimportant
for both the droplet generation and the droplet size. The MCE chip enabled mass-producing uniform fine droplets at 1.5 ml h−1 and 1.9 × 109 h−1, which could be further increased using a dispersed phase of low viscosity. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|