Description:
Princeton Docket # 15-3119-1
Researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University have designed a new microfluidic device for generating droplets with uniform size.
The formation and control of droplets are significant areas of development for microfabrication methods and have enabled new microfluidic applications in chemical and biological research. One of the common structures with which to form droplets is a T-junction microchannel where two immiscible liquids intersect at the junction and discrete droplets are produced periodically.
This innovation describes a new design for microfluidic devices. The design includes a soft microfluidic device with a flexible membrane, which is a passive droplet generation controller. It can be easily used in a conventional microfluidic technology without installing a complex device. The flexible membrane helps reduce the variability in the sizes of droplets produced. The polydispersity of the droplet size decreases from 40% to 5% by using the new (soft-microchannel) microfluidic device.
Figure 1. (a) Ordinary microfluidic channel design for droplet generation. (b) Microfluidic channel with flexible wall reduces droplet polydispersity.
Applications
• Microfluidics
• Lab-on-a-chip
• BioMEMS
Advantages
• Versatile
• Easy to implement
• Low cost
• Uniform droplet size
The Faculty Inventor
Howard A. Stone, Donald R. Dixon and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Department Chair
Howard Stone is the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. His research has been concerned with a variety of fundamental problems in fluid motions dominated by viscosity, so-called low Reynolds number flows, and has frequently featured a combination of theory, computer simulation and modeling, and experiments to provide a quantitative understanding of the flow phenomenon under investigation. Prof. Stone is the recipient of the most prestigious fluid mechanics prize, the Batchelor Prize 2008, for the best research in fluid mechanics in the last ten years. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.
Intellectual Property & Development Status
Patent protection is pending.
Princeton is currently seeking commercial partners for the further development and commercialization of this opportunity.
Contact:
Michael R. Tyerech
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing
• (609) 258-6762• tyerech@princeton.edu
Xin (Shane) Peng
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing
• (609) 258-5579• xinp@princeton.edu