Characterization of shapes and volumes of droplets generated in PDMS T-junctions to study nucleation

We characterize shapes and volumes of droplets generated in PDMS T-junctions and assess the use of this type of microfluidic device to generate droplets suitable for the study of nucleation. Water droplets were formed in oil in a PDMS T-junction and subsequently stored. Droplet volume reproducibility and stability were investigated from acquired micrographs. By theoretically analyzing the influence of the mean volume of a population of droplets on the estimation of nucleation rates, we have shown that deviations in mean volumes can seriously affect the estimates, unless such deviation is smaller than 10%. This condition is fulfilled if experiments are repeated using the same microdevice. Measured droplet polydispersity remained low enough to treat the droplets as monodisperse. Immersing the microdevice in a water bath mitigates solvent evaporation, and allows for very accurate temperature control. Finally, a screening procedure was used to select the ideal operating conditions to obtain droplets with the desired sizes. Applying this method in devices with increasing T-junction cross sectional area, we have demonstrated a scaling-up of droplet volumes close to an order of magnitude while tuning the droplet shape, i.e., the average length to width ratio, at values between 1 and 1.2. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.