US 11,293,057 B2 · AC electrosprayed droplets for digital and emulsion PCR

Abstract

The invention provides an alternating current electrospray technology that can generate micron sized droplets in oil at very high throughput for emulsion or digital PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). This technology outperforms the throughput of the current gold standard in droplet generation using flow-focusing technology by at least a factor of 100. The design is simple and can generate a billion to a trillion monodispersed droplets in about one hour. This is much faster than flow-focusing which is limited to a few million droplets per hour. The droplet size and generation rate can also be easily adjusted by changing the voltage of the AC electric field. The range of produced droplet sizes is about 1-100 microns, wherein the droplets are monodispersed in size.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An alternating current droplet generator comprising:

a) an electrospray emitter having a conical end and an orifice at the conical end, and a conduit to the orifice for a pressurized fluid, wherein the emitter can generate liquid droplets from the pressurized fluid at the orifice by an alternating current;
b) an alternating current electrode configured to provide the alternating current;
c) a droplet suspending medium wherein the medium comprises a carrier oil;
and
d) a droplet chamber comprising the medium, one or more inlets for the electrospray emitter and the medium, wherein the conical end of the emitter is at least partially inserted into the chamber, and the conical end is immersed in the medium;
wherein more than 100 monodispersed liquid droplets per second can be produced from the pressurized fluid by the alternating current droplet generator in the droplet suspending medium to form an emulsion.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

AC electrosprayed droplets for digital and emulsion PCR

Life of this patent

AC electrosprayed droplets for digital and emulsion PCR

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20