On-The-Fly Rapid-Cooling Gelation of Microgel Beads in Centrifugal Microfluidic Device with Liquid Nitrogen

Abstract

This paper describes a new fabrication method of microgel beads crosslinked by rapid temperature change using a centrifugal microfluidic device with a heating system and liquid nitrogen. Previously, materials for fabricating microgel beads with centrifugal microfluidic systems is limited to only sodium alginate solution. By using our proposed method, microgel beads could be fabricated by rapidly cooling pre-gel droplet ejected by centrifugal force. We succeeded in fabricating agarose microgel beads by rapid gelation in the liquid nitrogen. Our fabrication method will expand the variety of materials for the centrifugal microfluidic microgel beads fabrication method and possible applications including biosensors, tissue engineering and drug delivery systems.