Title: Generation of microcapsules using droplet microfluidics and elctrohydrodynamics

Biography:

Venkat Gundabala currently is professor in the department of Chemical engineering at IIT Bombay. He obtained his M.S. from Drexel University, USA and his PhD from University of Sheffield, UK, both in Chemical engineering. After that he had postdoctoral stints at University of Cambridge, UK and Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, before Joining IIT Bombay in 2012. He has worked in a variety of areas such as droplet-based Microfluidics, Lab-on-a-chip for biological applications, Nano-composites, and water-based coatings. At IIT Bombay, his main research includes using Microfluidic tools to synthesize nano-materials and developing Lab-on-a-chip devices for biological applications (particularly for studying C. elegans). His other research interests include nano-composites and functional coatings.

Abstract

In this work we present a microfluidics based implementation of electrohydrodynamics for generation microparticles and capsules. Electric fields are applied through a novel interface-crossing of the precursor single and double emulsion droplet. The particles are alginate based and the capsules have oil core with alginate shell. The particle and capsule sizes were investigated as functions of the applied electric field strength, when the droplet generation happened in the electrodripping mode. It was observed that the obtained particle/capsule sizes were much lower than non-EHD methods and the monodispersity is much better than external EHD approaches. Thus we show an efficient approach that couples EHD with microfluidics to generate uniformly sized microparticles and microcapsules.