Microfluidic on-chip production of microgels using combined geometries

Abstract Microfluidic on-chip production of microgels using external gelation can serve numerous applications that involve encapsulation of sensitive cargos. Nevertheless, on-chip production of microgels in microfluidic devices can be challenging due to problems induced by the rapid increase in precursor solution viscosity like clogging. Here, a novel design incorporating a step, which includes a sudden increase in cross-sectional area, before a flow-focusing nozzle was proposed for microfluidic droplet generators. Besides, a shielding oil phase was utilized to avoid the occurrence of emulsification and gelation stages simultaneously. The step which was located before the flow-focusing nozzle facilitated the full shielding of the dispersed phase due to 3-dimensional fluid flow in this geometry. The results showed that the microfluidic device was capable of generating highly monodispersed spherical droplets (CV