A Cheap, Easy Microfluidic Crystallization Device Ensuring Universal Solvent Compatibility

Abstract

Microfluidic devices are increasingly used for the screening of crystallization conditions. Their advantage is the generation of droplets, every droplet being an independent crystallizer with volumes in the nanoliter range. This enables a large number of experiments to be carried out under identical conditions necessitating only small quantities of materials. However, classic microfluidic crystallization devices are made of poly(dimethylsiloxane), only compatible with an aqueous medium. In addition, they generally involve very complicated setups, often inaccessible to nonmicrofluidics specialists. In this paper, we overcome these drawbacks, presenting a cheap and universally applicable microfluidic crystallization tool. This thermostatted device makes it possible to study nucleation in both aqueous and organic solvents, rendering microfluidic devices applicable to organic molecules such as APIs, explosives, and metal oxide nanoparticles.