Motion of an Elastic Capsule in a Trapezoidal Microchannel Under Stokes Flow Conditions.

Even though the research interest in the last decades has been mainly focused on the capsule dynamics in cylindrical or rectangular ducts, channels with asymmetric cross-sections may also be desirable especially for capsule migration and sorting. Therefore, in the present study we investigate computationally the motion of an elastic spherical capsule in an isosceles trapezoidal microchannel at low and moderate flow rates under the Stokes regime. The steady-state capsule location is quite close to the location where the single-phase velocity of the surrounding fluid is maximized.

Microfluidic generation of uniform water droplets using gas as the continuous phase.

Microfluidic schemes for forming uniform aqueous microdroplets usually rely on contacting the aqueous liquid (dispersed phase) with an immiscible oil (continuous phase). Here, we demonstrate that the oil can be substituted with gas (nitrogen or air) while still retaining the ability to generate discrete and uniform aqueous droplets. Our device is a capillary co-flow system, with the inner flow of water getting periodically dispersed into droplets by the external flow of gas.