Droplet Microfluidics with Aqueous Two-Phase Systems for Cell Encapsulation and Drug Delivery

In this thesis, microfluidic platforms based on aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) are developed. First, it is shown that exploiting affinity partitioning of particles, to the interface of an ATPS, enables the generation of particle stabilized water-in-water emulsions within a microfluidic platform. The process of droplet coverage is studied, and it is shown that the coverage of the droplets can be tuned by varying the size and the concentration of the particles used. Then, it is shown that integrating ionic cross-linking of alginate and calcium chloride, within the ATPS, can lead to the generation of spiky microparticles. The length of spikes on the microparticles can be tuned by changing the concentration of the calcium chloride solution. Particle-stabilized emulsions, and the spiky microparticles may have different biotechnological applications, for instance, for cell encapsulation, and drug delivery applications respectively.