Pulmonary drug delivery using droplets generated by Rayleigh instability-driven breakup of filaments

Abstract

For effective pulmonary drug delivery of insulin for example, drug particles must be in the range of 1 to 5 microns. A piezoelectrically actuated MEMS atomizer based on Rayleigh instability-driven breakup of filaments has been designed to produce drug particles in this range. Although the formation of droplets from jets have been used extensively in ink-jet printing, the currently presented mode of droplet formation has not yet been demonstrated by any MEMS device. Testing of the vaporizer reveals that the droplets generated lie primarily in the range of 1.0 - 3.0 microns, a range that covers the designed droplet size of 2.5 microns. We thus show that it is possible to implement this mode of droplet generation that will achieve better device efficiency.