Hydrodynamic directional control of liquid metal droplets within a microfluidic flow focusing system

Abstract

Here, we investigate the directional control of Galinstan liquid metal droplets when transferring from the high-viscosity glycerol core into the parallel low-viscosity NaOH sheath streams within a flow focusing microfluidic system. In the presence of sufficient flow mismatch between the sheath streams, the droplets are driven toward the higher velocity interface and cross the interface under the influence of surface tension gradient. A minimum flow mismatch of 125 μl/min is required to enable the continuous transfer of droplets toward the desired sheath stream. The response time of droplets, the time required to change the direction of droplet transfer, is governed by the response time of the syringe pump driven microfluidic system and is found to be 3.3 and 8.8 s when increasing and decreasing the flow rate of sheath stream, respectively