Effects of the choice of the continuous phase in droplet microfluidics on internal particle manipulation with acoustophoresis
(2025) In Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 157(6). p.4262-4272- Abstract
In this work, we have studied how the choice of the continuous phase oils affects droplet-internal acoustic manipulation and mapped the acoustic properties of the selected oils to evaluate their compatibility with droplet acoustofluidic methods. The selection of continuous phase included hydrocarbon, fluorinated, and silicone oils. To map the acoustic properties of the oils, we measured their speed of sound and density. We then studied the acoustic performance of each oil for droplet-internal manipulation through experiments and finite-element simulations (COMSOL Multiphysics®, COMSOL, Stockholm, Sweden). From our results, we conclude that a match between the speed of sound of the continuous and dispersed phases is strongly... (More)
In this work, we have studied how the choice of the continuous phase oils affects droplet-internal acoustic manipulation and mapped the acoustic properties of the selected oils to evaluate their compatibility with droplet acoustofluidic methods. The selection of continuous phase included hydrocarbon, fluorinated, and silicone oils. To map the acoustic properties of the oils, we measured their speed of sound and density. We then studied the acoustic performance of each oil for droplet-internal manipulation through experiments and finite-element simulations (COMSOL Multiphysics®, COMSOL, Stockholm, Sweden). From our results, we conclude that a match between the speed of sound of the continuous and dispersed phases is strongly correlated to the generation of a strong and uniform acoustic field inside the droplet. We demonstrate that conventionally favoured fluorinated oils in droplet microfluidics are no longer the best choice when considering droplet-internal acoustic focusing. Instead, hydrocarbon oils, especially linseed oil, are most suitable for this specific application as they generate stable and monodisperse droplets and bear the most resemblance to water in terms of acoustic properties. We believe this collection of data will serve the acoustofluidics community by providing results that aid in the selection of continuous phase in future droplet acoustofluidic studies and data for performing acoustofluidic simulations.
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- author
- Shi, Q. ; Baasch, T. LU ; Liu, Z. ; Fornell, A. ; Werr, G. ; Barbe, L. and Tenje, M.
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-06-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- volume
- 157
- issue
- 6
- pages
- 11 pages
- publisher
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105007881108
- pmid:40478185
- ISSN
- 0001-4966
- DOI
- 10.1121/10.0036771
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2025 Author(s).
- id
- 25e863a0-4bf2-4307-8f1d-174fb1142659
- date added to LUP
- 2025-12-16 09:57:43
- date last changed
- 2025-12-16 09:58:54
@article{25e863a0-4bf2-4307-8f1d-174fb1142659,
abstract = {{<p>In this work, we have studied how the choice of the continuous phase oils affects droplet-internal acoustic manipulation and mapped the acoustic properties of the selected oils to evaluate their compatibility with droplet acoustofluidic methods. The selection of continuous phase included hydrocarbon, fluorinated, and silicone oils. To map the acoustic properties of the oils, we measured their speed of sound and density. We then studied the acoustic performance of each oil for droplet-internal manipulation through experiments and finite-element simulations (COMSOL Multiphysics<sup>®</sup>, COMSOL, Stockholm, Sweden). From our results, we conclude that a match between the speed of sound of the continuous and dispersed phases is strongly correlated to the generation of a strong and uniform acoustic field inside the droplet. We demonstrate that conventionally favoured fluorinated oils in droplet microfluidics are no longer the best choice when considering droplet-internal acoustic focusing. Instead, hydrocarbon oils, especially linseed oil, are most suitable for this specific application as they generate stable and monodisperse droplets and bear the most resemblance to water in terms of acoustic properties. We believe this collection of data will serve the acoustofluidics community by providing results that aid in the selection of continuous phase in future droplet acoustofluidic studies and data for performing acoustofluidic simulations.</p>}},
author = {{Shi, Q. and Baasch, T. and Liu, Z. and Fornell, A. and Werr, G. and Barbe, L. and Tenje, M.}},
issn = {{0001-4966}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
number = {{6}},
pages = {{4262--4272}},
publisher = {{American Institute of Physics (AIP)}},
series = {{Journal of the Acoustical Society of America}},
title = {{Effects of the choice of the continuous phase in droplet microfluidics on internal particle manipulation with acoustophoresis}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/10.0036771}},
doi = {{10.1121/10.0036771}},
volume = {{157}},
year = {{2025}},
}