Unelectrified Aerosol-Producing Device for Biological Studies

01/18/2023

Potential applications of the whipping jet device.

A new “whipping jet” device delivers precisely controlled two-dimensional microdroplets. Potential applications in basic and applied research include ultrafast X-ray free electron laser studies, hydrophobic drug nanoparticles, spray-based chemotherapies, mass spectrometry, cryo-electron microscopy, hydrogel microparticles synthesis, and others. [Reprinted from Cell Reports Physical Science, 4(1), Narayanasamy et al., A sui generis whipping instability based self-sequencing multi-monodisperse 2D Sprays from an anisotropic microfluidic liquid jet device, Article No. 101221, Copyright 2023, with permission from Elsevier.]

Fan-shaped array of microdroplets produced by the whipping jet device.

The “whipping jet” device delivers a highly reproducible two-dimensional array of droplets of various sizes using a fine-scale microfluidic nozzle. [Reprinted from Narayanasamy et al., Copyright 2023, with permission from Elsevier.]

A multinational team of researchers from the Berkeley Synchrotron Infrared Structural Biology resource and other institutions have developed a microfluidic free liquid jet that aerosolizes precisely controlled microdroplets without electrification in two dimensions. The technology marks a third-generation advancement in the control of liquid jets after cylindrical jets were developed in 1998 and flat liquid sheet jets in 2018. The older methods form electrified droplets, which can affect sample integrity, especially for biological samples.

The novel device has the potential to impact many fields of basic and applied research including structural biology, carbon capture, and climate science. Microdroplet production can also benefit sample environment instrumentation such as mass spectrometry, X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs), synchrotrons, and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) used in, for example, biomacromolecule characterization.

Funding Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the Cluster of Excellence “The Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging – Structure, Dynamics and Control of Matter at the Atomic Scale” of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CUI, DFG-EXC1074, project ID 194651731). This work was conducted through the Berkeley Synchrotron Infrared Structural Biology (BSISB) Imaging program, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. The authors would like to acknowledge the cleanroom facility provided by the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY).

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References

Narayanasamy et al. 2023. A sui generis whipping instability based self-sequencing multi-monodisperse 2D Sprays from an anisotropic microfluidic liquid jet device. Cell Reports Physical Science, 4(1), 101221. [DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.101221]