Abstract:

Microspheres cover a wide range of applications such as drug synthesis and release. Microspheres fabricated by conventional high-sheer emulsification techniques, for instance phase separation and precipitation, have the defects of a large polydispersity in size and a high variability in structure. However, droplet microfluidic technology can overcome the problems. In this paper, based on microfluidic technology, an instrument was developed for precisely synthesizing microspheres in an automatic and continuous manner. The STM32F407 microcontroller of ARM series was the core of the instrument, which controlled the action of each execution module and communicated data with PC touching-screen. Results show that the instrument can work continuously for 80 hours, and enables an automatic and continuous preparation of microspheres with uniform and well-controlled size.

Key words: automatic microspheres preparation instrument, droplet microfluidic technology, ARM microcontroller