High-throughput triggered merging of surfactant-stabilized droplet pairs using traveling surface acoustic waves

Bussiere, V., Vigne, A., Link, A., McGrath, J., Srivastav, A., Baret, J.-C. and Franke, T. (2019) High-throughput triggered merging of surfactant-stabilized droplet pairs using traveling surface acoustic waves. Analytical Chemistry, 91(21), pp. 13978-13985. (doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b03521) (PMID:31576738)

Abstract

We present an acoustofluidic device for fluorescently triggered merging of surfactant-stabilized picoliter droplet pairs at high throughput. Droplets that exceed a preset fluorescence threshold level are selectively merged by a traveling surface acoustic wave (T-SAW) pulse. We characterize the operation of our device by analyzing the merging efficiency as a function of acoustic pulse position, duration, and acoustic pressure amplitude. We probe droplet merging at different droplet rates and find that efficient merging occurs above a critical acoustic power level. Our results indicate that the efficiency of acoustically induced merging of surfactant stabilized droplets is correlated with acoustic streaming velocity. Finally, we discuss how both time-averaged and instantaneous acoustic pressure fields can affect the integrity of surfactant layers. Our technique, by allowing the merging of up to 105 droplets per hour, shows great potential for integration into microfluidic systems for high-throughput and high-content screening applications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This publication is part of the EVOdrops project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813786. A.V. acknowledges the IdEx Bordeaux for the funding received in the framework of the program “Mobilite, internationalisation des etudes doctorales 2017”. J.C.B. acknowledges the support from the “Region Aquitaine ” and from the French Government “Investments for the Future” Programme, University of Bordeaux Initiative of Excellence (IDEX Bordeaux; Reference Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)-10-IDEX-03-02).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Link, Mr Andreas and VIGNE, Aurélie and McGrath, Dr John and Bussiere, Mr Vincent and Franke, Professor Thomas
• Authors: Bussiere, V., Vigne, A., Link, A., McGrath, J., Srivastav, A., Baret, J.-C., and Franke, T.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
• Journal Name: Analytical Chemistry
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• ISSN: 0003-2700
• ISSN (Online): 1520-6882
• Published Online: 11 October 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © American Chemical Society
• First Published: First published in Analytical Chemistry 91(21):13978-13985
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy