Acoustofluidic dynamic interfacial tensiometry

The interfacial tension (IFT) of fluids plays an essential role in industrial, biomedical, and synthetic chemistry applications; however, measuring IFT at ultralow volumes is challenging. Here, we report a novel method for sessile drop tensiometry using surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The IFT of the fluids was determined by acquiring the silhouette of an axisymmetric sessile drop and applying iterative fitting using Taylor's deformation equation. Owing to physiochemical differences, upon interacting with acoustic waves, each microfluid has a different streaming velocity. This streaming velocity dictates any subsequent changes in droplet shape (i.e., height and width). We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed SAW-based tensiometry technique using blood plasma to screen for high leptin levels. The proposed device can measure the IFT of microscale liquid volumes (up to 1 μL) with an error margin of only ±5% (at 25 °C), which deviates from previous reported results. As such, this method provides pathologists with a solution for the pre-diagnosis of various blood-related diseases.