Acousto-microfluidic technique for manipulation of droplets, particles and cells

I am pursuing my doctoral research under the supervision of Dr. Ashis Kumar Sen in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras. I received the prestigious prime minister research fellowship (PMRF) on July, 2019.

In this project, I am taking up a few research problems that have not been attempted in the literature so far. I plan to develop fundamental understanding of acoustic radiation forces which can be used to manipulate particles/cells in a microfluidics platform using acoustophoresis. Specifically, I will develop simulation model based on perturbation technique to find the role of secondary radiation force on droplet-droplet coalescence, particle or cell encapsulation inside a droplet. Further, experiments will be carried out to demonstrate the effects of radiation forces on particle agglomeration, droplet-droplet coalescence, and cell encapsulation. Furthermore, the effect of the acoustic radiation pressure on fluid-fluid interfaces will be investigated. The above understanding is critical in the development of microfluidics devices based on acoustic standing wave technology which can be used for single cell analysis, cell lysis, mixing of reagent etc. The detailed report and presentation of the last departmental review meeting can be found below.

• E. Hemachandran*, S. Z. Hoque*, T. Laurell and A. K. Sen*, "Reversible stream drop transition in a microfluidic coflow system via on demand exposure to acoustic standing waves " Physical Review Letters, 127, 134501, 2021, doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.134501. (* equal contribution).

• S. Z. Hoque, A. Nath, A. K. Sen, "Dynamical motion of a pair of microparticles at the acoustic pressure nodal plane under the combined effect of axial primary radiation and interparticle forces" Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 2021, 150 1, https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/10.0005521.

• S. Z. Hoque, A. K. Sen, "Interparticle acoustic radiation force between a pair of spherical particles in a liquid exposed to a standing bulk acoustic wave" Physics of Fluids, 32 072004, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0013095.

• S. Z. Hoque, A. Nath, A. K. Sen, "Effect of axial primary radiation force on the dynamical motion of a pair of microparticles along the pressure nodal plane", Acoustofluidics 2021.

• S. Z. Hoque, A. K. Sen, "Numerical simulations of relocation mechanism of coflowing immiscible fluids exposed to bulk acoustic wave", Acoustofluidics 2021.

• S. Z. Hoque, A. K. Sen, "Reversal of interparticle radiation forces acting on micro particles induced by bulk acoustic standing waves in a microchannel", Acoustofludiics 2020.

Review comment May 2022:

• Recommended with commendation - Excellent progress. Very good understanding.

Review comment Dec 2021:

• Advanced to Next Scale with commendation - Very good progress.

Review comment Dec 2020:

• Good - The candidate has already done some work in the area of acousto-microfluidics and published papers in that area in reputed journals. Moreover, he has also received PMRF fellowship in July 2019. Proposed work is a novel combined experimental-numerical effort. Apart from clustering phenomenon, student can try applying the same knowledge for some other application area. The progress of the student in the past year has been satisfactory, especially considering restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic.

• Place of work: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tezpur University, Assam.

Nature of work: I taught the course, ME202 - Introduction of Fluid Mechanics to the second year students via online mode along with Dr. Paragmoni Kalita, Teaching Instructor. I have discussed different tutorial problems and interacted with the students.

Dates when the work was carried out: September 2021 - December 2021.

Number of Hours spent per week: 2 Hours.

Total number of classes taken: 15.

• Place of work: NPTEL course - Heat Transfer and Combustion in Multiphase Systems

Nature of work: I have taken the tutorial classes for the NPTEL course. During the classes, I interacted with the participants and was able to clear their doubts.

Dates when the work was carried out: February 2022 - March 2022.

Number of Hours spent per week: 2 Hours.

Total number of classes taken: 9.

• Place of work: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tezpur University, Assam.

Nature of work: I taught the course, ME316 - Computer Aided Engineering to the third year students via online mode along with Dr. Paragmoni Kalita, Teaching Instructor. I have also demonstrated CFD simulations using Ansys fluent student version.

Dates when the work was carried out: March 2022 - May 2022.

Number of Hours spent per week: 3 Hours.

Total number of classes taken: 7.

• Place of work: NPTEL course - Laws of Thermodynamics

Nature of work: I have taken the problem solving session for the NPTEL course. During the classes, I interacted with the participants and was able to clear their doubts.

Dates when the work was carried out: July 2022 - August 2022.

Number of Hours spent per week: 2 Hours.

Total number of classes taken: 4.

• Place of work: Teach in 10 program - IITM.

Nature of work: I have taken a task to mentor a school student to prepare a 10 minute video to explain the fundamental principle of car radiator related to his course work.

Dates when the work was carried out: August 2022 - December 2022.

Number of Hours spent per week: 4 Hours every week.