New design of microchip for in-situ DLS measurement of colloidal suspensions

Q3 Materials Science

JCIS open Pub Date : 2023-10-01 DOI:10.1016/j.jciso.2023.100086

Claire Marliere, Sylvie Perrin, Didier Frot, Xavier Lefebvre, Eric Lécolier

{"title":"New design of microchip for in-situ DLS measurement of colloidal suspensions","authors":"Claire Marliere, Sylvie Perrin, Didier Frot, Xavier Lefebvre, Eric Lécolier","doi":"10.1016/j.jciso.2023.100086","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Stability of dispersed materials remains an important question in a wide variety of fields such as cosmetics, catalysis, food or energy and the environment. As stability is directly linked to the size of the dispersed colloids it is essential to assess the size distribution of colloidal suspensions. Nowadays, microfluidic-based approaches generate increasing interest as they represent flexible and fast measurements allowing high throughput experimentations. However, characterization of colloidal dispersions is usually performed by dynamic light scattering (DLS), that requires static measurements as well as significant volumes, that are not compatible with on-line analysis and microfluidics. Moreover, due to flow-induced decorrelation terms, DLS measurements in microfluidic channels are only accurate at very low shear rates.</p><p>This work aimed at developing an on-line microfluidic device for dispersed materials characterization using DLS. The main challenges of this project were i) to adapt the microfabrication of the PDMS device in order to combine microchannels of hundreds of microns with a milli-fluidic cavity to perform the DLS measurements, and ii) to downsize the DLS set up. A PDMS microchip, consisting in a millimeter cavity for DLS measurements in parallel with a microchannel, was designed to perform the measurement on the sample without stopping the suspension flow during the microfluidic experiment. The cavity geometry was then optimized thanks to numerical simulation to ensure a good sweep efficiency and to downscale as much as possible without impairing the DLS signal.</p><p>By adapting the microfabrication process, a PDMS microfluidic chip was designed allowing the size measurements of successive suspensions containing 100 and 12 nm diameter particles. This work is a first step towards the implementation of a new technological building block for online microfluidic characterization.</p><p>© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73541,"journal":{"name":"JCIS open","volume":"11 ","pages":"Article 100086"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JCIS open","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666934X23000132","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Materials Science","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Stability of dispersed materials remains an important question in a wide variety of fields such as cosmetics, catalysis, food or energy and the environment. As stability is directly linked to the size of the dispersed colloids it is essential to assess the size distribution of colloidal suspensions. Nowadays, microfluidic-based approaches generate increasing interest as they represent flexible and fast measurements allowing high throughput experimentations. However, characterization of colloidal dispersions is usually performed by dynamic light scattering (DLS), that requires static measurements as well as significant volumes, that are not compatible with on-line analysis and microfluidics. Moreover, due to flow-induced decorrelation terms, DLS measurements in microfluidic channels are only accurate at very low shear rates.

This work aimed at developing an on-line microfluidic device for dispersed materials characterization using DLS. The main challenges of this project were i) to adapt the microfabrication of the PDMS device in order to combine microchannels of hundreds of microns with a milli-fluidic cavity to perform the DLS measurements, and ii) to downsize the DLS set up. A PDMS microchip, consisting in a millimeter cavity for DLS measurements in parallel with a microchannel, was designed to perform the measurement on the sample without stopping the suspension flow during the microfluidic experiment. The cavity geometry was then optimized thanks to numerical simulation to ensure a good sweep efficiency and to downscale as much as possible without impairing the DLS signal.

By adapting the microfabrication process, a PDMS microfluidic chip was designed allowing the size measurements of successive suspensions containing 100 and 12 nm diameter particles. This work is a first step towards the implementation of a new technological building block for online microfluidic characterization.

Abstract Image

查看原文本刊更多论文

胶体悬浮液原位DLS测量微芯片的新设计

分散材料的稳定性在化妆品、催化、食品、能源和环境等诸多领域仍然是一个重要的问题。由于稳定性与分散胶体的大小直接相关，因此评估胶体悬浮液的大小分布是必要的。如今，基于微流体的方法产生越来越多的兴趣，因为它们代表灵活和快速的测量，允许高通量实验。然而，胶体分散体的表征通常是通过动态光散射(DLS)进行的，这需要静态测量以及大量的体积，这与在线分析和微流体不兼容。此外，由于流动诱导的去相关项，微流体通道中的DLS测量只有在非常低的剪切速率下才准确。本工作旨在开发一种在线微流控装置，用于分散材料的DLS表征。该项目的主要挑战是i)适应PDMS设备的微加工，以便将数百微米的微通道与毫流体腔结合起来执行DLS测量，ii)缩小DLS设置。设计了PDMS微芯片，该芯片位于用于DLS测量的毫米腔中，与微通道平行，用于在微流控实验期间不停止悬浮流动的情况下对样品进行测量。然后通过数值模拟对空腔几何形状进行优化，以确保良好的扫描效率，并在不影响DLS信号的情况下尽可能缩小尺寸。通过采用微加工工艺，设计了一种PDMS微流控芯片，可以测量直径为100 nm和12 nm的连续悬浮液的尺寸。这项工作是实现在线微流体表征的新技术构建块的第一步。©2017 Elsevier Inc.版权所有。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

JCIS open Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, Colloid and Surface Chemistry, Surfaces, Coatings and Films

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

36 days