Drying with no concentration gradient in large microfluidic droplets.

Abstract

In most situations, drying is accompanied by the development of strong concentration gradients. Here, we evidence theoretically and experimentally that there exist microfluidic geometries for which confined drying becomes homogeneous, i.e., with no concentration gradient regardless of the type of solute involved in the process; ions, molecules, and colloids do concentrate in the same way providing a limited set of assumptions concerning the microfluidic geometry. It thus makes possible the establishment of phase diagrams of multi-component mixtures at the nanoliter scale.