Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BuBble Gun (Penetrating microjets in soft substrates: towards controlled needle-free injections)
Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30
We are generating new knowledge in the fields of microfluidics, physics, and bioengineering. These, combined, will open new ways to improve injection phenomena, e.g. in the delivery of drugs, dermatologic applications and other industries. We aim at developing a portable energy-efficient injection platform that could help quantifying injections with experimental resolutions below the microsecond and micrometer scales. As an added result, we will probe the rheological properties of jets made of biocompatible additives.
This project is concerned with studying the energy partition between the creation of bubbles, the formation of liquid jets, and the penetration of these jets into soft substrates. We are achieving new ways to control cavitation within microfluidic confinement, tune the rheology of jets emerging from confined cavitation. As a result, we are unveiling the relationships between fluid dynamics and material properties governing jet injection into soft substrates.