Understanding Molecular Transfer between Aqueous Phase and Reverse Micelles and Its Application to Bioassays in Microfluidics

Abstract

Abstract Micrometer-sized water-in-oil droplets (microdroplets) are attracting attention as carriers for the high-throughput parallel analysis of trace samples. By confining trace amounts of water-soluble samples or reagents within a microdroplet, reactions and detection can be performed while suppressing diffusion dilution. Although many manipulation methods for droplets, such as mixing, merging, and splitting using microfluidic channels have been reported, concentration enrichment and purification techniques for microdroplet inclusions have been limited. Our recently developed method for selective concentration enrichment of microdroplet contents focuses on molecular transport between microdroplets and reverse micelles.