Characterisation of complex fluids and bioparticles using optimised microfluidic devices

Mónica S. N. Oliveira

James Weir Fluids Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Strathclyde

Abstract

Microfluidic platforms have proven to be very versatile for studies of complex fluids. These devices allow us to achieve high strain rates while maintaining inertia low, and explore regions in the Weissenberg - Reynolds number parameter space typically unreachable at the macro-scale for low viscosity fluids. We have designed a number of single and multi-stream microfluidic configurations for characterising complex fluids under controlled deformation (e.g. gradients of shear rate or regions of homogeneous extension rate). We will discuss achievements and pitfalls in the context of applications in the analysis of single molecule, bio-particle dynamics and in extensional rheology, in which we typically want to delay the onset of elastic instabilities to obtain the ideal flow field. A range of test cases (red blood cells, DNA, actin filaments and protein aggregates) is considered to highlight the ability of our approaches for investigating the rich variety of dynamical behaviour, such as morphological transitions, complex orientation dynamics or deformations of objects with a wide range of sizes, characteristics and behaviours of relevance in the biological world.

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