Adhesion of moving droplets in microchannels

Haosheng Chen, Enkai Dong, Jiang Li, Howard A. Stone

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

When oil drops in a continuous water phase move from the hydrophilic to the hydrophobic section of a microchannel, they can be controlled to either adhere or not adhere on the channel by changing the capillary number. Using experiments and a model for the thin film flow, we show that the critical capillary number for adhesion is approximately Ca ∼ D3/4/d3/2, where D and d is the length of the droplet and the inner dimension of the microchannel, respectively. As one application of these ideas, droplet adhesion is demonstrated as a promising technology for recycling of emulsions in droplet microfluidics.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number131605
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume103
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 23 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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