Many powders employed in the food and pharmaceutical industries are produced through spray drying because it is a cost efficient process that offers control over the particle size. However, most commercially available spray-driers cannot produce drops with diameters below 1 μm, limiting the size of spray-dried particles to values above 300 nm. We recently developed a microfluidic spray-drier that can form much smaller drops than commercially available spray-driers. This is achieved through a two-step process: first, the microfluidic spray-drier operates in the dripping regime to form 100 μm diameter primary drops in air and, second, subjects them to high shear stresses due to supersonic flow of air to break them into many much smaller secondary drops. In this paper, we describe the two essential steps required to form sub-μm diameter airborne drops inside microfluidic channels. We investigate the influence of the device geometry on the ability to operate the microfluidic spray-drier in the dripping regime. Moreover, we describe how these primary drops are nebulized into many secondary drops that are much smaller than the smallest dimension of the spray-drier channels.

Emulsification is a key step in many processes for the production and functionalization of dispersed liquid systems. Here, we report a versatile and robust device that generates monodisperse milliemulsions by step-emulsification. In contrast to the conventional design in which each channel is physically separated, we use a shallow plateau sandwiched between two parallel glass strips to connect all channels in a microcapillary film (MCF) before emerging in a deep reservoir. Because of the open plateau that connects different channels, the flow tips from neighboring channels may get immediately in contact with each other; this interaction may lead to the relative movement and deformation of the flow tips, to repulsion or even coalescence, enabling droplet generations from different channels to synchronize. By simply tuning the interaction, we achieve Janus droplets, drops of fluids mixed at different ratios and mixed drops of different compositions. The in situ generation of droplets with excellent control is essential for various applications.

Core–shell double emulsions produced using microfluidic methods with controlled structural parameters exhibit great potential in a wide range of applications, but the low production rate of microfluidic methods hinders the exploitation of the capabilities of microfluidics to produce double emulsions with well-defined features. A major obstacle towards the scaled-up production of core–shell double emulsions is the difficulty of achieving robust spatially controlled wettability in integrated microfluidic devices. Here, we use tandem emulsification, a two-step process with microfluidic devices, to scale up the production. With this method, single emulsions are generated in a first device and are re-injected directly into a second device to form uniform double emulsions. We demonstrate the application of tandem emulsification for scalable core–shell emulsion production with both integrated flow focusing and millipede devices and obtain emulsions of which over 90% are single-core monodisperse double emulsion drops. With both mechanisms, the shell thickness can be controlled, so that shells as thin as 3 μm are obtained for emulsions 50 μm in radius.

Implantable sensors that detect biomarkers in vivo are critical for early disease diagnostics. Although many colloidal nanomaterials have been developed into optical sensors to detect biomolecules in vitro, their application in vivo as implantable sensors is hindered by potential migration or clearance from the implantation site. One potential solution is incorporating colloidal nanosensors in hydrogel scaffold prior to implantation. However, direct contact between the nanosensors and hydrogel matrix has the potential to disrupt sensor performance. Here, we develop a hollow-microcapsule-based sensing platform that protects colloidal nanosensors from direct contact with hydrogel matrix. Using microfluidics, colloidal nanosensors were encapsulated in polyethylene glycol microcapsules with liquid cores. The microcapsules selectively trap the nanosensors within the core while allowing free diffusion of smaller molecules such as glucose and heparin. Glucose-responsive quantum dots or gold nanorods or heparin-responsive gold nanorods were each encapsulated. Microcapsules loaded with these sensors showed responsive optical signals in the presence of target biomolecules (glucose or heparin). Furthermore, these microcapsules can be immobilized into biocompatible hydrogel as implantable devices for biomolecular sensing. This technique offers new opportunities to extend the utility of colloidal nanosensors from solution-based detection to implantable device-based detection.

Although a number of techniques exist for generating structured organic nanocomposites, it is still challenging to fabricate them in a controllable, yet universal and scalable manner. In this work, a microfluidic platform, exploiting superfast (milliseconds) time intervals between sequential nanoprecipitation processes, has been developed for high-throughput production of structured core/shell nanocomposites. The extremely short time interval between the sequential nanoprecipitation processes, facilitated by the multiplexed microfluidic design, allows us to solve the instability issues of nanocomposite cores without using any stabilizers. Beyond high throughput production rate (∼700 g/day on a single device), the generated core/shell nanocomposites harness the inherent ultrahigh drug loading degree and enhanced payload dissolution kinetics of drug nanocrystals and the controlled drug release from polymer-based nanoparticles.