Ashlyn Terasaki, “Validation of Microfluidic Droplet Formation using COMSOL”
Mentor: Mahsa Dabagh, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering & Applied Science (College of)
Poster #44
Micro-droplet formation in microfluidic devices play a critical role in biomedical and chemical applications. Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) have unique properties that can be leveraged to control droplet size, composition, and behavior. Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) has been used with different RTILs to explore the effect that flow rate ratios have on droplet size. To validate experimental results, the interaction of PBS and two different RTILs were simulated in COMSOL with varying flow rate ratios. Properties such as dynamic viscosity, contact angle, and density were defined for the different liquids, allowing for a more accurate simulation. After running each case, the size of the droplets were found using ImageJ to ensure consistency among each measurement. By comparing experimental and simulated results, the model’s accuracy can be evaluated and can provide insight into the interactions of these fluids for control of droplet formation. This highlights the role of computational modeling in improving predictive capabilities for experiments.