CN-116764695-B - Liquid drop sorting chip

CN116764695BCN 116764695 BCN116764695 BCN 116764695BCN-116764695-B

Abstract

The invention relates to the field of droplet microfluidics, in particular to a droplet sorting chip. The liquid drop sorting chip disclosed by the invention is provided with the cavity area, can contain impurities such as fibers entering the liquid drop sorting chip, can effectively prevent liquid drops caused by blockage and impurities from collision and fusion, and ensures that liquid drop sorting can be smoothly carried out.

Inventors

ZHOU HONGBO
SONG RUYUAN
XU XIAONAN

Assignees

浙江达普生物科技有限公司

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20220309

Claims (4)

1. A droplet sorting chip, the chip comprising a cavity region for containing impurities entering the droplet sorting chip and a sieve-like structure; the chip includes an injection port for injecting a mixed solution, the mixed solution including droplets, the cavity region being downstream of the injection port and in fluid communication with the injection port; the sieve-like structure is positioned at the downstream of the injection port, the sieve-like structure is formed into an angle shape near one end of the injection port, the periphery of the angle shape is the cavity area, the mixed solution can enter the sieve-like structure through the injection port, the sieve-like structure comprises cylinders and pores, the cylinders are arranged at intervals to form the pores, the pores are used for the passing of the liquid drops, the cylinders and the pores enable the liquid drops to flow out one by one at intervals, the depth of the cavity area is larger than that of the sieve-like structure, the bottom end of the cavity area is deeper than that of the sieve-like structure, the top end of the cavity area is higher than that of the sieve-like structure, the cavity area is positioned at the top end and/or the bottom end of the chip in the depth direction, the injection port is directly connected with the cavity area, the connection is smooth, the chip further comprises a liquid drop inlet, an oil phase inlet, a high-pressure separation electrode, a separation liquid drop outlet, a liquid drop outlet and a liquid drop channel, the cavity area is positioned at the liquid drop inlet, the separation channel comprises a main channel, a target channel, a separation channel, a bias channel, the waste channel and a main channel, the waste channel and the main channel are positioned at the separation channel and the main channel, the bias channel and the waste liquid channel are positioned at the downstream of the separation channel, the main channel is used for passing mixed solution, the mixed solution comprises non-target liquid drops and continuous phases, the bias channel is used for passing fluid and generating transverse resistance, the direction of the transverse resistance is from one side of the bias channel to one side of the main channel, the non-target liquid drops can be prevented from entering the target channel after passing through the separation part from the main channel, the area of the cross sections of the vertical channels of the main channel and the bias channel is smaller than that of the cross sections of the vertical channels of the target channel and the waste liquid channel, and a communicated branch channel is arranged between the target channel and the waste liquid channel.
2. The chip of claim 1, wherein the cavity regions are located on either side of the injection port.
3. The chip of claim 1, wherein the cavity region is an "eight" shaped space.
4. The chip of claim 1, wherein the chip periphery is provided with shielding electrodes.

Description

Liquid drop sorting chip Technical Field The invention relates to the field of droplet microfluidics, in particular to a droplet sorting chip. Background The microfluidic chip (Microfuidic chip) is also called a Lab-on-a-chip (Lab-on-a-chip), and is used for integrating multiple functions of preparation, reaction, detection, separation and the like of samples in biological and chemical experiments on a chip with a size of a few square centimeters, and is called a micro laboratory. The microfluidic chip has great application potential in the fields of biological sample processing, rapid disease diagnosis and the like by virtue of miniaturization, integration and automation, and has been greatly developed in recent years. The microfluidic control of droplets is an important branch of a microfluidic platform, and is a brand new technology for operating tiny volumes of liquid, i.e. droplets. Droplets are formed from one fluid within another immiscible carrier fluid, which occurs essentially as an emulsion. Depending on the roles that the two immiscible fluids are in during droplet generation, they are referred to as the continuous phase and the dispersed phase (discontinuous phase), respectively, the dispersed phase being the fluid that is dispersed into droplets, and the continuous phase being the fluid that acts as the carrier for the droplets. According to the difference that the single-layer emulsified disperse phase belongs to the water phase or the oil phase, the liquid drops can be divided into O/W type (oil-in-water) liquid drops and W/O type (water-in-oil) liquid drops, wherein the O/W type liquid drops refer to oil drops formed by taking the oil phase as the disperse phase and the water phase as the continuous phase, and the W/O type liquid drops refer to water drops generated by taking the water phase as the disperse phase and the oil phase as the continuous phase. The liquid drop has the advantages of small volume, low diffusion, no cross contamination, high reaction speed and the like, and can be used for high-throughput analysis. In practical application, high-throughput droplet sorting is required, the volume of a single droplet is small, usually in the range of nano liter to picoliter (10 -9～10-12 L), and correspondingly, the volume of a chip applied to droplet sorting is also small, especially the size of an inlet, a channel and the like in a sorting chip is generally in the same level as that of the droplet, and if some external environment exists or liquid entering a micro channel per se contains impurities, the sorting efficiency and the effect of the liquid can be obviously affected. Disclosure of Invention The present invention has found that tiny dust, fibers, etc. entering the microchannels can easily cause clogging, breakage, or fusion of the droplet sorting chip. In addition, small variations in flow rate or other small external forces during droplet sorting can have a significant impact on the results of droplet sorting. How to accurately and effectively perform rapid sorting of droplets has been a technical problem in the art. In order to sort mixed droplets, accurately, quickly and automatically acquire target droplets, the invention provides a droplet sorting system comprising a droplet sorting chip and/or a droplet sorter for controlling or housing the chip. In a first aspect of the invention, a droplet sorting chip is provided that includes a droplet inlet, a spacer oil phase inlet, a high pressure sorting electrode, a sorted droplet outlet, a waste outlet, and a channel connecting the inlets and outlets. The liquid drop inlet is used for entering a mixed solution, and the mixed solution comprises target liquid drops, non-target liquid drops and a continuous phase. The interval oil phase inlet is used for injecting the continuous phase to drive the mixed solution to flow forwards further, and can adjust the interval of the liquid drops and control the flow rate of the liquid drops. The high-voltage sorting electrode is used for generating a non-uniform electric field, so that target liquid drops are subjected to dielectrophoresis force in the non-uniform electric field to change the flow direction of the target liquid drops, and the target liquid drops reach a sorting liquid drop outlet. The sort drop outlet is used to collect the target drops. The waste outlet is used to collect non-target droplets. In some aspects, the chip further includes a bias oil phase inlet for injecting a continuous phase that prevents unintended droplets from misflowing to the sort droplet outlet. In some embodiments, the chip further includes a shielding electrode for shielding the non-uniform electric field generated by the high voltage electrode from interfering with other regions other than the target region. In some embodiments, the chip comprises a glass substrate and a PDMS chip mounted thereon, with the droplet inlet, the spacer oil inlet, the high-pressure sorting electrode, the sorting droplet