Microfluidic-droplet based systems are a versatile tool for the manipulation and detection of chemical compounds. These systems  require small volumes of sample for analysis and the droplets formed in the process may be collected after detection and stored for further analysis on different systems. Microfluidic systems may also be coupled to different separation techniques, such as capillary electrophoresis (CE)  instruments. These separation techniques can be used to separate the different components of a chemical mixture, and then be directly connected to a droplet-generator. CE is an extremely high-resolution analytical separation technique that separates chemical compounds through the application of an electrical potential, and it is a powerful tool for separations due to its speed of separation and its requirement for very low volumes of sample. As of yet there has been limited research involving the coupling of CE to microfluidic droplet systems, and further development in this area of separations science may provide efficient and useful methods of analyzing the components of an unknown sample.<br/>The system we have designed involves a relatively inexpensive multi-capillary electrophoretic system in which a fluorescently labeled sample is introduced into the capillary through an electro-kinetic injection. This capillary system is used to separate the components of the sample through the application of an electric potential into individual ions based on their electric charge and size, which then flow directly into to the droplet generator. Within this droplet generator, the separated compounds are introduced into a constantly flowing immiscible perfluorocarbon liquid, which mediates the formation of many individual droplets containing the separated compounds in the order in which they were separated.<br/>The end goal of this research is to be able to effectively separate fluorescently labeled biomolecules such as proteins and lipids in the form of droplets and then be able to collect and store these droplets for further analysis. Not only do we hope that we can collect separated compounds, but ideally this device should also be able to require only very limited amounts of sample to perform a reliable separation. We will demonstrate the potential of a powerful, yet relatively inexpensive analytical separation technique coupled to a microfluidic-droplet generating system with the hope that this device can eventually be used in many different laboratories.

Combining capillary electrophoresis and microfluidic droplets to separate and detect fluorescent biomolecules

251st National Meeting (2016)

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