[en] Evaporation is a critical yet often overlooked source of error in microfluidic platforms, where nanoliter-scale volume losses can impair metering accuracy and assay reliability. While evaporation has been studied extensively in open configurations (e.g., for droplets on a surface) and in simple systems such as microchannels, fewer studies have characterized evaporation within networked microfluidic circuits with interconnected chambers and channels. In such architectures, evaporation depends on the collective diffusion resistance of multiple pathways rather than a single characteristic length scale. Here, the evaporation of small liquid plugs (100 nL–10 μL) is systematically investigated within microfluidic circuits. Through controlled experiments and mapping alongside lumped-element modeling, it is shown how channel dimensions determine total vapor-diffusion resistance and the resulting evaporative flux. Results indicate that evaporation rates remain insensitive to contact-line position, provided the system operates in the isothermal, steady-state, and diffusion-limited regime. Furthermore, compact analytical expressions are derived that accurately predict evaporation across diverse designs, including microwell geometries relevant to multi-well plates. This study establishes quantitative design rules for engineering microfluidic circuits with predictable evaporative behavior. It provides a general framework for minimizing volume loss in applications ranging from sample preparation and cell analysis to wearable sensors and portable devices.
Disciplines :
Mechanical engineering Biotechnology
Author, co-author :
Gholizadeh, Ali ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Aérospatiale et Mécanique (A&M) ; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Division of Applied Mechanics and Energy Conversion (TME), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Stone, Howard A.; Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
Fontanarosa, Donato; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Division of Applied Mechanics and Energy Conversion (TME), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Vetrano, Maria R.; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Division of Applied Mechanics and Energy Conversion (TME), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Gilet, Tristan ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Aérospatiale et Mécanique (A&M)
Language :
English
Title :
Engineering liquid-plug evaporation in microfluidic networks: From vapor and temperature mapping to predictive lumped-element modeling
Publication date :
October 2026
Journal title :
International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer
The authors thank Denis Vandormael (Sirris) for manufacturing the microfluidic chips, and Gabriel Mazzucchelli, the project coordinator, for his insightful discussions on the application of this work. This research was funded by the Wallonia Public Service (SPW) through the Win2Wal grant 2010126 (ChipOmics).
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