LITERATURE REVIEW

GROUP-I

Introduction
One of the most important droplet-based microfluidic operations is the
droplet generation and entrainment process. For the high throughput
capability required by the next generation of multifunctional microfluidic
devices, rapid and controllable droplet formation is paramount. The Reynolds
(Re) number is almost always less than unity in traditional oil-water dropletbased systems due to the highly viscous continuous phase oil. As such, the
detachment process is overwhelmingly governed by the interaction between
viscous and surface tension forces that lead to a well characterized Capillary
(Ca) number dependence [14]. This balance produces well-defined droplets
or slugs that inevitably lack any trailing tail features or liquid film
development. This is a direct result of the surface energy of the discrete
phase relative to the continuous phase which provides droplet formation and
transport without direct contact with the channel walls. The continuous
phase provides lubrication during transport and there always remains a thin
continuous phase film separating the droplet from the channel walls.
Inkjet printing generally involves the generation, control and deposition of
sub-100m drops of liquid. An inkjet printer can deposit a very small volume
of liquid (down to 1 picolitre or a drop diameter 12 m) with high positional
accuracy, high speed and low cost. As a maskless, non-contact additive
patterning method, this technology is increasingly being explored as an
alternative to lithography, etching and vapour deposition processes to
pattern electrical conductors and thin films with applications in printed
electronic devices such as organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), plastic
organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), solar cells, radio frequency
identification (RFID) tags, printed circuit boards, memory devices and
sensors (Forrest 2004; Tekin et al. 2008; Singh et al. 2010). Many of the
applications of inkjet printing require a good understanding of drop
deposition on to a highly wettable, nonporous substrate: this involves both
the initial impact and spreading stages as well as the later stages of the
wetting process. A polymer OLED display which contains a number of pixels
of organic electroluminescent elements provides a typical example. A holeinjection layer and a luminescent layer are formed between a cathode and a

transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) anode coated on to a glass substrate. The
two layers are deposited by regions of less wettable material. In order to
optimise the printing process it is necessary to understand the whole process
of liquid drop impact including the dynamic behaviour of a drop over a very
short time scale (microseconds) and the much longer wetting process (which
typically extends over several seconds).

Background
The theoretical basis of modern inkjet technology was founded by Lord
Rayleigh in a series of papers on liquid jets and their instability (Rayleigh
1878; Rayleigh 1879; Rayleigh 1882). Although the first inkjet-like recording
device using electrostatic forces was invented by Lord Kelvin in 1858, the
first practical inkjet device based on Rayleighs principle was devised in 1951
by Elmqvist of Siemens-Elema (US Patent 2,566,433). A more elaborate
continuous inkjet printer emerged in the early 1960s when Sweet of Stanford
University demonstrated that a series of drops with uniform size and spacing
could be generated from a stream of liquid by applying a regular pressure
wave to orifice (Sweet 1965). Various types of drop-on-demand (DoD) inkjet
technologies began to appear from the 1970s. The first piezo-based inkjet
printer was designed by Zoltan of the Clevite company in 1972 (US Patent 3,
683, 212). He proposed a squeeze mode of piezo print head, which led to the
later introduction of other types of print heads such as bend mode, push
mode and shear mode. On the other hand, Canon invented the thermal-type
inkjet technology, named Bubble jet, which generates drops by using the
growth and collapse of a vapour bubble in an ink chamber. Hewlett-Packard
also developed similar technology, called Think jet.

Objective
The main objective of this project is to observe the effect of printer head
orifice in plane geometry on the droplet volume at detachment. This is done
by writing the surface evolver code and running it in the surface evolver
software. First plane geometry is considered and then the drop flowing and
evaluating from an orifice is observed and after refining it, the droplet at
some point detaches. The effect of orifice at that point must be known.

References
[1] Bui, A., and Zhu, Y., 2007, Numerical Study of Droplet Generation in a
Complex Micro-Channel, Proceedings of the 16th Australasian Fluid
Mechanics Conference, Gold Coast, Australia
[2] van der Graaf, S., Steegmans, M., van der Sman, R. G. M., Schroen C. G. P.
H., and Boom, R. M., 2005, Droplet Formation in a T-Shaped Microchannel
Junction: A Model System for Membrane Emulsification, Colloids Surf., A,
266, pp. 106116.
[3] van der Graaf, S., Nisisako, T., Schroen, C. G. P. H., van der Sman, R. G.
M., and Boom, R., 2006, Lattice Boltzmann Simulations of Droplet Formation
in a T-Shaped Microchannel, Langmuir, 22, pp. 41444152