Microbubble characteristic in a T-junction microchannel in microfluidic chip

Formation characteristic of microbubble in a T-junction microchannel in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chip is investigated. Microbubble formation experiments are carried out to investigate the effects of liquid flow rate, gas pressure and gas channel width on the detachment volume and formation time of microbubble. The growth process of the bubble is described by the form of force analysis, and the definition of the bubble detachment distance is introduced. The equivalent spherical theoretical model of bubble detachment diameter prediction is established, and the numerical solution of the model is obtained by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. The prediction results of theoretical model correlate well with the experimental data.