Faster droplet production by delayed surfactant-addition in two-phase microfluidics to form thermo-sensitive microgels

Microfluidic droplet templating produces monodisperse particles of well controllable sizes, but this is limited by the necessity to operate microfluidic devices at low flow rates in the dripping regime. Here, the per-channel rate of droplet production could be substantially increased by delayed surfactant addition as applied and verified for microfluidic production of N-isopropylacrylamide based microgels. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.