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Microfluidic Fabrication of Various Ceramic Microparticles

Chenchen Zhou^1,2, Shuaishuai Liang³, Bin Qi³, Chenxu Liu², Nam-Joon Cho^1,*

1 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
3 School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

* Corresponding Author: Nam-Joon Cho. Email:

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences 2024, 30(3), 1-2. https://doi.org/10.32604/icces.2024.012380

Abstract

Micro tools/parts are attracting increasing attention due to the miniaturization evolutionary tendency in many fields, whose functionalities are critically determined by their materials and shapes [1- 5]. Sharp-edged ceramic microparticles have great prospects to be used as micromachining tools and micro components. However, it remains a huge challenge to fabricate nontransparent ceramic sharp-edged microparticles in a high-throughput way while taking their shape complexity, precision, and strength into account [6-8]. Herein, we present an online mixing and in-situ polymerization strategy: “one-pot microfluidic fabrication” along with two novel microfluidic device fabrication methods: “groove & tongue” and sliding assembling, succeeding in obtaining both transparent and nontransparent microparticles with great shape diversity, complexity, precision, density and strength. The throughput rate is increased by 2 orders of magnitude higher than other methods. Compression and scratch tests demonstrate the promising potential of the obtained microparticles being of practical use in a wide spectrum of applications, including micromachining, microelectronics, microrobots, microsurgery, etc.

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Keywords

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