A microfluidic device based on droplet storage for screening solubility diagrams

Abstract

This work describes a new microfluidic device developed for rapid screening of solubility diagrams. In several parallel channels, hundreds of nanoliter-volume droplets of a given solution are first stored with a gradual variation in the solute concentration. Then, the application of a temperature gradient along these channels enables us to read directly and quantitatively phase diagrams, concentration vs. temperature. We show, using a solution of adipic acid, that we can measure ten points of the solubility curve in less than 1 hr and with only 250 $\mu$L of solution.