• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2008년도 추계학술대회A
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• pp.1752-1757
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• 2008

Simple and highly efficient droplet merging method is proposed, which enables two nanoliter or picoliter droplets to merge regularly in a straight microchannel. We observe that two droplets of the same size but of different viscosities are merged by velocity difference induced as they are transported with the carrier fluid. To make viscosity difference, the mass ratio of water and glycerol is varied. Two droplets of the same size or of different sizes are generated alternatingly in the cross channel by controlling flowrates. This droplet merging method can be used to mix or encapsulate one target sample with another material, so that it can be applied to cell lysis, particle synthesis, drug discovery, hydrogel-bead production, and so on.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산유체공학회 2009년 추계학술대회논문집
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• pp.103-108
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• 2009

The droplet impact and merging process on a flat substrate with contact angle hysteresis is numerically studied. The droplet deformation is determined by an improved level-set method employing a sharp-interface technique for the stress condition at the liquid-gas interface and the contact angle condition at the liquid-gas-solid interline. Based on the computations, the droplet impact and merging pattern is investigated to find the optimal condition in manufacturing a micro-line. The effects of dynamic contact angles and droplet spacing on droplet motion are quantified.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제33권3호
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• pp.178-185
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• 2009

Simple and highly efficient droplet merging method is proposed, which enables two nanoliter or picoliter droplets to merge regularly in a straight microchannel. Using a cross channel with inflows of one oil phase through the main channel and two water phases through the side channels, two droplets of different sizes can be generated alternatingly in accordance with flow rate difference of the water phases. It is shown that for a fixed oil phase flow rate, the flow rate of one water phase required for alternating droplet generation increases linearly with the flow rate of another water phase. By this method, the droplets are merged with 100 % efficiency without any additional driving forces.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산유체공학회 2008년도 춘계학술대회논문집
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• pp.666-669
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• 2008

Droplet in miniaturized microfluidic systems have received much focused attention recently. In this work, electrical charging phenomenon of a conducting water droplet on the electrode under the dc electric field is studied and using this phenomenon droplet actuation method for microreactor applications is experimentally demonstrated. To find effects of key factors, the effects of electric field, medium viscosity, and droplet size are investigated. A scaling law of charging for the conducting droplet is derived from the experimental results. Unlike the case of a perfect conductor, the estimated amount of electrical charge ($Q_{est}$) of a water droplet is proportional to the 1.59 power of the droplet radius (R) and the 1.33 power of the electric field strength (E). (For a spherical perfect conductor, Q is proportional to R2 and E.) It is thought that the differences are mainly due to incomplete charging of a water droplet resulted from the combined effect of electrochemical reaction at electrode and the relatively low conductivity of water. Using this phenomenon, we demonstrate the transport of the charged droplet and fusion of two oppositely-charged droplets. When electric field is subjected sequentially on the electrode, the charged droplet is transported on the electrode. For the visualization of fusion of charged droplets, the precipitation reaction is used. When subjected to a DC voltage, two droplets charged are moving and merging toward each other due to the Coulombic force and chemical reaction is simultaneously occurred by coalescence of droplets. It may be due to the interchange effect of charge. It is shown that the droplet can be used for microreactor where transporting, merging etc. of reagents constitute unit operation.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제7권1호
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• pp.91-96
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• 2012

We introduce an understanding of silver (Ag) inkjet overlap-printing characteristics from the viewpoints of cohesion between ink droplets and adhesion between an ink droplet and a surface. The printing characteristics were closely monitored by changing the surface energy to elucidate the effect of adhesion and cohesion on printing instability, such as droplet merging and line bulging. The surface energy of the substrate was changed through the hydrophilization of a hydrophobic fluorocarbon-coated surface. The surface energy and ink wettability of the prepared surfaces were characterized using sessile drop contact angle analysis, and printing instability was observed using an optical microscope after drop-on-demand inkjet printing with a 50% overlap in diameter of deposited singlet patterns. We found that the surface energy is not an appropriate indicator based on the experimental results of Ag ink printing on a hydrofluoric-treated silicon surface. The analytical approach using adhesion and cohesion was helpful in understanding the instability of the inkjet overlap-printing, as adhesion and cohesion represent the direct interfacial relationship between the Ag inks used and the substrate.

• 한국가시화정보학회지
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.26-30
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• 2023

Interaction of a droplet and substrate is important to determine the coating and final deposition pattern in inkjet printing system. In particular, an accurate deposition of the droplet should be guaranteed for high-resolution patterning. In this study, we performed high-speed shadowgraph experiments on droplet train impact in inkjet system. From the high-speed images, we observed an unexpected bouncing phenomenon. We have found two factors affecting bouncing regime; the Weber number and the curvature of deposited droplet. Experimental results indicate that there is a critical curvature diameter of deposited droplet, which splits into bouncing and merging regime. From this result, we obtained a power-law behavior between the Weber number and the curvature. The understanding of bouncing phenomena helps to improve the accuracy and productivity of inkjet printing.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전기학회 2007년도 Techno-Fair 및 추계학술대회 논문집 전기물성,응용부문
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• pp.104-105
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• 2007

In this study, characteristics of silver ink-jet printing were investigated under various substrate treatments such as substrate heating, hydrophobic coating, and ultraviolet(UV)/ozone soaking. Fluorocarbon(FC) film was spin-coated on the polyimide (PI) film substrate to obtain a hydrophobic surface. Although hydrophobicity of the FC film could reduce the diameter of the printed droplets, the singlet images printed on the FC film surface showed irregularities in the pattern size and the position of the printed droplet along with droplet merging phenomenon. The proposed UV/ozone soaking of the FC film improved the uniformity of the pattern size and the droplet position after printing and substrate heating was very effective way in preventing droplet merging. By heating of the substrate after UV/ozone soaking of the coated FC film, silver conductive lines of 78-116 ${\mu}m$ line were successfully printed at low substrate temperatures of $40^{\circ}C$.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• 제52권1호
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• pp.106-112
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• 2014

본 연구에서는 미세액적을 효과적으로 합류시키기 위하여 미세기둥 구조들에 따른 영향 및 정체 현상 조절에 관한 연구를 수행하였다. 최적의 미세액적 합류조건을 찾기 위하여 매우 정교하게 조절이 가능한 미세 밸브를 접목하였다. 수용성 미세액적은 연속상으로 0.5 wt% Span 80이 함유된 미네랄 오일을 사용하였다. 합류과정은 미세유체 칩 내부에 위치한 미세기둥의 구조와 배치를 통해 액적 주위의 압력과 액적 내부의 라플라스 압력의 차이를 조정하여 수행된다. 마지막으로 최적의 합류 구조를 지닌 미세유체시스템에서 효소 생화학반응 실험을 수행함으로써 본 장치가 생물학 및 생화학 실험을 수행하는 유용한 도구로서 사용될 수 있음을 입증하였다.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• 제48권5호
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• pp.545-555
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• 2010

최근 액적 기반의 미세유체 시스템은 물리, 화학, 생물학등의 기초과학과 재료과학 분야까지 매우 폭넓게 활용되고 각광받고 있는 기술분야이다. 본 총설은 액적기반 미세유체 시스템의 미세유체 반응기 제작 기술, 액적 형성 원리, 액적 혼합 및 제어, 그리고 새로운 기능성 재료의 합성등의 폭넓은 응용분야에 관해 자세하게 소개하고자 한다. 더불어 액적기반 미세유체 시스템의 가장 큰 장점인 입자의 크기 조절 방법, 형태, 모양 및 구조의 제어 기술에 관해 논의하고자 한다.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산유체공학회 2009년 춘계학술대회논문집
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• pp.159-164
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• 2009

The water droplet motion and the interaction between the droplets in a PEMFC air flow channel with multiple pores, through which water emerges, is studied numerically by solving the equations governing the conservation of mass and momentum. The liquid-gas interface is tracked by a level set method which is based on a sharp-interface representation for accurately imposing the matching conditions at the interface. The method is modified to implement the contact angle conditions on the walls and pores. The dynamic interaction between the droplets growing on multiple pores while keeping the total water flow rate through pores constant is investigated by conducting the computations until the droplet motion exhibits a periodic pattern. The numerical results show that the droplet merging caused by increasing the number of pores is not effective for water removal and that the contact angle of channel wall strongly affects water management in the PEMFC air flow channel.