Preparation of emulsion for nutrient delivery using 3D printed microfluidic chips

Abstract

Microfluidic chip with T junction channel configuration was fabricated using stereo lithography 3D printing technology. The printed chip was used to prepare emulsion for nutrient delivery. This paper deals with the preliminary studies done to fabricate a delivery system for co-delivery of curcumin and resveratrol. The effect of ratio between flow rates of aqueous and oil phases on emulsion stability was studied and flow rates of the two phases were optimized at 6 ml/h and 0.2 ml/h respectively. Low flow rate ratio between the two phases resulted in lower size of droplets of oil phase. The prepared emulsion was studied for its characteristics such as morphology, particle size, zeta potential, color, and entrapment efficiency. Homogeneous monodisperse emulsions were formed with particle size 528 nm and low PDI of 0.151. The zeta potential was found to be 31.4 mV. The L*, a*, and b* were 70.77±0.01, -13.78±0.04, 42.81±0.12 respectively. The emulsion also exhibited good entrapment efficiency of be 65.11% and 58.40% for curcumin and resveratrol respectively. Hence microfluidic emulsification serves as low energy technique for preparation of monodisperse emulsion delivery system for nutrients.