Microfluidic Formation of Hydrogel Microparticles for Drug Delivery

Creating monodispersed hydrogel microparticles is advantageous for drug delivery applications. We explore microfluidic flow focusing as a method for generating such particles. Our hydrogel has a unique composition that makes it biodegradable and mechanically strong. We designed and manufactured a polymer microfluidic chip that mixes three viscous precursor solutions and generates a steady stream of microparticles from that solution. We found that microfluidic flow focusing produce particle with a coefficient of variance around 9%; this was a four times improvement over traditional methods.