Study of droplet generation in an E-shaped microchannel using two-phase level-set method

Abstract

Droplet-based microfluidics is the study of microfluidic device, where droplets are generated mainly using two methods i.e., active, and passive methods. The manipulation of these droplets in microfluidic channels is an immensely useful technology in various scientific fields such as biological, biomedical studies, and drug delivery. Recently droplets with a core-shell structure have achieved considerable interest due to their unique properties and varied applications. Droplet splitting as an important feature of droplet-based microfluidic systems has been widely used. In the present paper, two-dimensional numerical simulations have been done to examine the droplet splitting process in an E Junction geometry microchannel. The two-phase level set method (LSM) has been used to analyze the mechanism of droplet formation and droplet splitting in an immiscible liquid/liquid two-phase flow. Governing equations on the flow field have been studied and solved using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The model was developed to simulate the mechanism of droplet splitting at the E-junction microchannel. This study provides a passive technique to split up microdroplets at the E-junction.