From design to performance: 3D printing-enabled optimization of low-cost droplet microfluidics

Droplet microfluidic is a novel technique for screening applications that offers benefits such as high throughput, low sample consumption, and improved single-cell analysis capabilities. This technique involves creating and manipulating small droplets of fluid that can serve as discrete reactors for various assays and experiments. However, droplet-based microfluidics have a complex, relatively high-cost, and time-consuming process. In this research, a T-shaped junction droplet generator is fabricated using 3D printing. By using 3D printing, droplet generator fabrication becomes simple, fast, and low-cost. The fabricated droplet-based microfluidics are then evaluated for their performance. Through several optimizations in dimension and flow-rate, a droplet generator with a channel height of 0.5 mm and a width of 1 mm was successfully fabricated using the 3D printing method. The droplet generator can produce monodisperse droplets with optimum performance with identical flow-rate of Qc and Qd around 2.5 ml/hr. The experimental result also in a good agreement with a 2D numerical result based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation.