Novel Microfluidic Droplet-in-Droplet System Offers Monodisperse Double Emulsions

It enables unrivalled reproducibility and selectivity of droplet size of both outer and inner phases with either oil-in-water-in-oil or water-in-oil-in-water droplets. The Double Emulsion System is highly beneficial to applications in the food industry, in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics that use double emulsions as delivery vehicles or encapsulation solutions for various active ingredients, or more generally in paints and coatings.

Dolomite’s systems for producing double emulsions offer highly consistent and more monodisperse droplets than the traditional two step emulsification process that uses conventional rotor-stator or high pressure valve homogenizers.

The key elements of the Double Emulsion System are the Mitos P-Pump, which delivers precise flow to ensure droplet monodispersity, and the glass Double Emulsion Chip which has a hydrophobic capillary and hydrophilic flow focussing droplet junction, enabling the formation of droplets ranging from 80 to 120μm (outer) and 50 to 90μm (inner) in diameter.

Further advantages the system offers can be found in shielding sensitive biological structures from forces exerted by the sheath fluid, preservation of the linkage between an individual microorganism and the substances it secretesallowing for a screening of metabolites and the opportunity to perform in vitro analyses of biomolecules detached from the respective microorganisms.