scholarly journals Facile Method for Fabricating Microfluidic Chip Integrated with Microwell Arrays for Cell Trapping

Micromachines ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 719
Author(s):  
Hongyue Wu ◽  
Zhixing Ge ◽  
Wenguang Yang ◽  
Xiaoduo Wang ◽  
Xiaodong Wang ◽  
...  

With the development of biomedical technology, personalized diagnosis and treatment at the single-cell level are becoming more important in the medical field. As one of the most powerful tools, microfluidic chips have shown significant potential for various applications related to cell separation, cell proliferation, and cell behavior analysis. However, fabricating microfluidic devices requires complicated procedures and high-cost equipment. In this study, an optofluidic maskless lithography method was proposed for rapid fabrication of microfluidic devices integrated with microwells. Through the use of this approach, microwells can be on-line designed and the exposure patterns can be modulated. Single or multi polystyrene microspheres were successfully trapped by using the designed microwells. The capture of MCF-7 cells and cell arrays indicated that the microfluidic devices fabricated in the present study can be applied for cell research.

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanwei Wang ◽  
Michael Seidel

AbstractFabrication of 3D microfluidic devices is normally quite expensive and tedious. A strategy was established to rapidly and effectively produce multilayer 3D microfluidic chips which are made of two layers of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) sheets and three layers of double-sided pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes. The channel structures were cut in each layer by cutting plotter before assembly. The structured channels were covered by a PMMA sheet on top and a PMMA carrier which contained threads to connect with tubing. A large variety of PMMA slides and PSA tapes can easily be designed and cut with the help of a cutting plotter. The microfluidic chip was manually assembled by a simple lamination process.The complete fabrication process from device design concept to working device can be completed in minutes without the need of expensive equipment such as laser, thermal lamination, and cleanroom. This rapid frabrication method was applied for design of a 3D hydrodynamic focusing device for synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as proof-of-concept. The fouling of AuNPs was prevented by means of a sheath flow. Different parameters such as flow rate and concentration of reagents were controlled to achieve AuNPs of various sizes. The sheet-based fabrication method offers a possibility to create complex microfluidic devices in a rapid, cheap and easy way.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heba Mansour ◽  
Ahmed M.R. Fath El-Bab ◽  
Emad A. Soliman ◽  
Ahmed L. Abdel-Mawgood

Abstract Microfluidic devices are a rising technology to automatize chemical and biological operations. In this context, laser ablation has significant potential for polymer-based microfluidic platforms' fast and economical manufacturing. Nevertheless, the manufacturing of epoxy-based microfluidic chips is considered highly cost full due to demand for cleanroom facilities that utilize expensive equipment and lengthy processes. Therefore, this study targeted investigating the feasibility of epoxy resins to be fabricated as a lab-on-chip using carbon dioxide laser ablation. The chemical structural properties and thermal stability of the plain epoxy resins were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectral analysis (FT-IR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Moreover, a specific migration test was performed to quantify potential migrants by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to prove that the cured epoxy resin would not release unreacted monomers to the biological solution test, which caused inhibition of the sensitive biological reactions. By investigating the impact of this process on microchannels' dimensions and quality, a laser technique using CO2 laser was used in vector mode to engrave into a transparent epoxy resin chip. The resulting microchannels were characterized using 3D Laser microscopy. The outcomes of this study showed considerable potential for laser ablation in machining the epoxy-based chips, whereas the microchannels were produced with minor bulges' height (0.027 µm) with no clogging. Moreover, a reasonable depth of 99.31 µm with roughness (Ra) of 14.52 µm was obtained at a laser speed of 5 mm/s and laser power of 1.8 W. This process can produce epoxy resin-based microfluidic chips without the need for cleanroom facilities that require expensive equipment and lengthy process.


Author(s):  
Reinaldo Lucas dos Santos Rosa ◽  
Antonio Carlos Seabra

This chapter provides a guide for microfluidic devices development and optimization focused on chemical analysis applications, which includes medicine, biology, chemistry, and environmental monitoring, showing high-level performance associated with a specific functionality. Examples are chemical analysis, solid phase extraction, chromatography, immunoassay analysis, protein and DNA separation, cell sorting and manipulation, cellular biology, and mass spectrometry. In this chapter, most information is related to microfluidic devices design and fabrication used to perform several steps concerning chemical analysis, process preparation of reagents, samples reaction and detection, regarding water quality monitoring. These steps are especially relevant to lab-on-chip (LOC) and micro-total-analysis-systems (μTAS). μTAS devices are developed in order to simplify analytical chemist work, incorporating several analytical procedures into flow systems. In the case of miniaturized devices, the analysis time is reduced, and small volumes (nL) can be used.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Mohamed ◽  
Hitendra Kumar ◽  
Zongjie Wang ◽  
Nicholas Martin ◽  
Barry Mills ◽  
...  

With the dramatic increment of complexity, more microfluidic devices require 3D structures, such as multi-depth and -layer channels. The traditional multi-step photolithography is time-consuming and labor-intensive and also requires precise alignment during the fabrication of microfluidic devices. Here, we present an inexpensive, single-step, and rapid fabrication method for multi-depth microfluidic devices using a high-resolution liquid crystal display (LCD) stereolithographic (SLA) three-dimensional (3D) printing system. With the pixel size down to 47.25 μm, the feature resolutions in the horizontal and vertical directions are 150 μm and 50 μm, respectively. The multi-depth molds were successfully printed at the same time and the multi-depth features were transferred properly to the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) having multi-depth channels via soft lithography. A flow-focusing droplet generator with a multi-depth channel was fabricated using the presented 3D printing method. Experimental results show that the multi-depth channel could manipulate the morphology and size of droplets, which is desired for many engineering applications. Taken together, LCD SLA 3D printing is an excellent alternative method to the multi-step photolithography for the fabrication of multi-depth microfluidic devices. Taking the advantages of its controllability, cost-effectiveness, and acceptable resolution, LCD SLA 3D printing can have a great potential to fabricate 3D microfluidic devices.


Lab on a Chip ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1072-1083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaying Chen ◽  
Jane Sun ◽  
Ernst Wolvetang ◽  
Justin Cooper-White

In this paper, the design, development and validation of a novel high throughput microfluidic device enabling both the robust and rapid trapping of 100's to 1000's of single cells and their in situ clonal growth is described.


Lab on a Chip ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (17) ◽  
pp. 2915-2924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han Sun ◽  
Chiu-Wing Chan ◽  
Yisu Wang ◽  
Xiao Yao ◽  
Xuan Mu ◽  
...  

Using an antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST) as an example, this work demonstrates a practical method to fabricate microfluidic chips entirely from polypropylene (PP) and the benefits for potential commercial use.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 1719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja P. Kojic ◽  
Goran M. Stojanovic ◽  
Vasa Radonic

Microfluidics, one of the most attractive and fastest developed areas of modern science and technology, has found a number of applications in medicine, biology and chemistry. To address advanced designing challenges of the microfluidic devices, the research is mainly focused on development of efficient, low-cost and rapid fabrication technology with the wide range of applications. For the first time, this paper presents fabrication of microfluidic chips using hybrid fabrication technology—a grouping of the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) foils and the LTCC (Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics) Ceram Tape using a combination of a cost-effective xurography technique and a laser micromachining process. Optical and dielectric properties were determined for the fabricated microfluidic chips. A mechanical characterization of the Ceram Tape, as a middle layer in its non-baked condition, has been performed and Young’s modulus and hardness were determined. The obtained results confirm a good potential of the proposed technology for rapid fabrication of low-cost microfluidic chips with high reliability and reproducibility. The conducted microfluidic tests demonstrated that presented microfluidic chips can resist 3000 times higher flow rates than the chips manufactured using standard xurography technique.


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