Determination of Geometrical Parameters to Balance the Pressure Drop of Channels on a Microfluidic Chip

In the past few years, micro-droplets have been widely used in diverse fields of biological and chemical research, spanning from drug delivery and material synthesis to point-of-care diagnostics, digital PCR, and single-cell analysis. Droplet-based microfluidics offers a powerful platform for conducting complex experiments, screening processes, and analyses with enhanced precision, efficiency, and versatility. While creating droplets with uniform sizes is a common objective of microfluidics, it is not limited to producing droplets of a single size per chip. Creating microdroplets with different sizes on a microfluidic chip holds significant importance in various applications. This can provide flexibility in controlling chemical processes, biological reactions, or product quality. By controlling the size of the microdroplets, researchers can precisely regulate the release kinetics of the encapsulated substances, leading to improved therapeutic outcomes and reduced side effects for patients. In chemical analysis, microfluidic platforms can produce microdroplets of different sizes to enable high-throughput screening of chemical reactions or biological assays. By manipulating the droplet size, researchers can enhance reaction efficiency, increase sample throughput, and reduce reagent consumption, making the analysis process more cost-effective and time-efficient. To create microdroplets with different sizes on a microfluidic chip, adjusting process parameters such as pressure, flow rate, and channel design is an approach. In this research, geometrical parameters of the channel such as shape, size, and length are calculated to ensure the pressure drop from the inlet to the creation point droplets of each branch is the same, ensuring the stable operation of the system. The input solution in the research is glucose, which fully exhibits the behavior of a non-Newtonian liquid under defined conditions. The power law viscosity model is used to describe the rheological behavior of glucose liquids.