Bubble Generation Chips

Gas bubbles are used more and more in scientific research and development and medical diagnosis. For example, they are the key active ingredients in detergents and cleaning products; they are used in the recovery of natural gas in the petroleum industry; they are used in the synthesis of mesoporous materials in materials science; they are used in the delivery of targeted drugs in clinical applications. Microfluidics has gradually attracted attention in the application of micro gas bubbles, which provides new opportunities for separating fluid into highly controlled formulations.

Figure 1. Microfluidics is used for microbubble production and surface functionalization: liposomes perform one-step surface functionalization of microbubbles. (Peyman S. A, et al. 2012)

The traditional method of bubble generation relies on nozzles that discharge gas into a static fluid or agitate in the presence of surfactants to mix the gas and liquid, which usually produces a polydispersed medium, forming many bubbles of different sizes. Reliably producing bubbles of controllable size is a challenging process. Alfa Chemistry can provide you with low-cost and energy-saving production methods. The bubble generation chip we provide can perfectly meet this point.

About Alfa Chemistry's Bubble Generation Method

Microfluidic technology can change the volume fraction of the gas phase from zero to one. The mechanism of bubble formation depends on the flow rate of the fluid passing through the microfluidic chip device. We use the flow-focusing method to set up the microfluidic chip, which can generate uniform bubbles with a diameter ranging in tens of microns and narrow size distribution.

The bubbles generated by the flow-focusing method depend on the pressure balance at the junction of the microfluidic chip between the gas phase and the liquid phase. The gas pressure must be kept constant in order to adjust the bubble size, while the carrier gas pressure must be changed. This changes the pressure ratio of the carrier gas to the gas at the junction of the microfluidic chip, and the flow rate of the carrier phase changes accordingly.

A higher total flow will result in a higher bubble generation rate. Usually, the frequency of bubble generation using our bubble generation chip is about 10 to 1000 bubbles per second. Increasing air pressure or reducing liquid pressure will cause larger bubbles; reducing air pressure or increasing water pressure will produce smaller bubbles.

Applications

The generation of bubbles on the microfluidic chip can be used to produce micron-sized bubbles dispersed in a liquid, which makes it possible to develop advanced materials for scientific research and industry. For many applications, it is important to generate monodisperse bubbles to obtain foams with consistent characteristics.

• Pharmaceutical Industry
• Biotechnology industry
• Cosmetics industry
• And more

Reference

• Peyman S. A, et al. (2012). “Expanding 3D Geometry for Enhanced on-Chip Microbubble Production and Single Step Formation of Liposome Modified Microbubbles.” Lab Chip. 12: 4544-4552.

Our products and services are for research use only.