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Developing heatable microfluidic chip to generate gelatin emulsions and microcapsules

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Abstract

The heatable microfluidic chip developed herein successfully integrates a microheater and flow-focusing device to generate uniform-sized gelatin emulsions under various flow rate ratios (sample phase/oil phase, Q s/Q o) and driven voltages. The gelatin emulsions can be applied to encapsulate vitamin C for drug release. Our goal is to create the thermal conditions for thermo-sensitive hydrogel materials in the microfluidic chip and generate continuous and uniform emulsions under any external environment. The gelatin emulsion sizes have a coefficient of variation of <5 % and can be precisely controlled by altering the flow rate ratio (Q s/Q o) and driven voltage. The gelatin emulsion diameters range from 45 to 120 μm. Moreover, various sizes of these gelatin microcapsules containing vitamin C were used for drug release. The developed microfluidic chip has the advantages of a heatable platform in the fluid device, active control over the emulsion diameter, the generation of uniform-sized emulsions, and simplicity. This new approach for gelatin microcapsules will provide many potential applications in drug delivery and pharmaceuticals.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Center for Micro/Nano Science and Technology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC, for access to equipment and technical support. Funding from the National Science Council of Taiwan, ROC, under grants NSC 101-2811-E-006-051 and 101-2221-E-006-192-MY2 is gratefully acknowledged. The work was also partially supported by the “Aim for the Top University Plan” of the National Chiao Tung University and Ministry of Education, Taiwan, ROC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Science, National Cheng Kung University, 1 University Road, Tainan, 701, Taiwan, ROC

    Chia-Hsien Yeh, Ke-Rong Chen & Yu-Cheng Lin

  2. Center for Micro/Nano Science and Technology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC

    Yu-Cheng Lin

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  1. Chia-Hsien Yeh
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  2. Ke-Rong Chen
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Correspondence to Yu-Cheng Lin.

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Yeh, CH., Chen, KR. & Lin, YC. Developing heatable microfluidic chip to generate gelatin emulsions and microcapsules. Microfluid Nanofluid 15, 775–784 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-013-1193-x

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