Control and Measurement of the Phase Behavior of Aqueous Solutions Using Microfluidics

A microfluidic device denoted the Phase Chip has been designed to measure and manipulate the phase diagram of multicomponent fluid mixtures. The Phase Chip exploits the permeation of water through poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) in order to controllably vary the concentration of solutes in aqueous nan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of the American Chemical Society Vol. 129; no. 28; pp. 8825 - 8835
Main Authors:	Shim, Jung-uk, Cristobal, Galder, Link, Darren R, Thorsen, Todd, Jia, Yanwei, Piattelli, Katie, Fraden, Seth
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States American Chemical Society 18-07-2007
Subjects:	Crystallization Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - instrumentation Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - methods Microfluidics - instrumentation Microfluidics - methods Phase Transition Polymers Proteins Research Design Solutions - chemistry Water
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Summary:	A microfluidic device denoted the Phase Chip has been designed to measure and manipulate the phase diagram of multicomponent fluid mixtures. The Phase Chip exploits the permeation of water through poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) in order to controllably vary the concentration of solutes in aqueous nanoliter volume microdrops stored in wells. The permeation of water in the Phase Chip is modeled using the diffusion equation, and good agreement between experiment and theory is obtained. The Phase Chip operates by first creating drops of the water/solute mixture whose composition varies sequentially. Next, drops are transported down channels and guided into storage wells using surface tension forces. Finally, the solute concentration of each stored drop is simultaneously varied and measured. Two applications of the Phase Chip are presented. First, the phase diagram of a polymer/salt mixture is measured on-chip and validated off-chip, and second, protein crystallization rates are enhanced through the manipulation of the kinetics of nucleation and growth.
Bibliography:	istex:C796998788C839565B310F8CA4680F55025088D9 ark:/67375/TPS-XVKZ63J3-J ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Raindance Technologies, Guilford, CT 06437, USA Current address: Laboratoire du Futur, Rhodia/CNRS, 33608 Pessac, France
ISSN:	0002-7863 1520-5126
DOI:	10.1021/ja071820f