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Updated: May 7, 2026

Fabricating High-viscosity Droplets using Microfluidic Capillary Device with Phase-inversion Co-flow Structure
Published on: April 17, 2018
Temperature-triggered microfluidic fabrication of monodisperse organic particles via LCST-mediated phase transition
Keita Tanita1, Ryuju Suzuki2, Hitoshi Kasai3
1Research Institute for Chemical Process Technology, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) 4-2-1 Nigatake, Miyagino-ku Sendai Miyagi 983-8551 Japan t-ishizaka@aist.go.jp.
Abstract:
We report a microfluidic strategy for fabricating monodisperse organic particles by exploiting temperature-controlled miscibility in mixed solvents exhibiting lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior. In a water-diethylene glycol monohexyl ether (C6E2) system, phase separation at elevated temperatures enables controlled generation of monodisperse droplets, which subsequently reprecipitate into particles upon cooling to the miscible state. As a result, poly(vinyl alcohol) microparticles with a coefficient of variation below 9% were successfully obtained. This LCST-driven microfluidic approach offers a general platform for producing highly uniform particles from both polymeric and low-molecular-weight organic compounds.

