Patent ID: 9744513
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: B01J

Claim:
1. A method for encapsulating and sorting colloidal objects, wherein the encapsulating comprises flowing said objects in a first flow stream partly or fully surrounded by at least one second flow stream in a narrow strait of a microchannel, along a path of said first flow stream in the strait either (a) the cross section of said first flow stream is smaller than the largest cross section of at least some of said objects, or (b) the smallest width of said first flow stream in a direction perpendicular to the flow direction is smaller than the largest width of at least some of said objects, such that said first flow stream is, in the absence of said objects, forming droplets with a volume smaller than the volume of at least some of said objects, said first flow stream is not symmetric with regard to the longitudinal axis of said microchannel in said narrow strait, and the sorting of the encapsulated objects occurs under passive hydrodynamics.