Droplet microfluidics to interrogate lipid phase transformations and self-assembly

Emulsions are everywhere, frothy lattes – are air droplets in milk. Milk is fat droplets in water. Droplet microfluidics enables precise manipulation of these droplets. Lipids too are everywhere and can form liquid crystals in water. Using the control of microfluidics, we investigate what happens when a crystal forming fat droplet is merged with one that is water. Surprisingly it crystallizes in a slow and controlled manner which allows new data to be gathered. Digestion can crystallize lipids, and this was directly observed using our method. The findings opens up new methods of investigating these lipid liquid crystals for drug delivery.