3D printing direct to industrial roll-to-roll casting for fast prototyping of scalable microfluidic systems

Abstract

Microfluidic technologies have enormous potential to offer breakthrough solutions across a wide range of applications. However, the rate of scale-up and commercialization of these technologies has lagged significantly behind promising breakthrough developments in the lab, due at least in part to the problems presented by transitioning from benchtop fabrication methods to mass-manufacturing. In this work, we develop and validate a method to create functional microfluidic prototype devices using 3D printed masters in an industrial-scale roll-to-roll continuous casting process. There were no significant difference in mixing performance between the roll-to-roll cast devices and the PDMS controls in fluidic mixing tests. Furthermore, the casting process provided information on the suitability of the prototype microfluidic patterns for scale-up. This work represents an important step in the realization of high-volume prototyping and manufacturing of microfluidic patterns for use across a broad range of applications.

Large-Area Sensor Permits Near-Continuous Multi-Point Measurements of Aqueous Biological and Chemical Analytes

“…[24][25][26] In this work, we demonstrate a method for detecting aqueous analytes using a low-cost, large-area sensor system capable of multi-point measurements. The sensor system uses a large-area (tens to hundreds of squared meters per sensor) mass-manufactured diffraction texture, originally created for the fashion industry, 27 that can be cut to a desired size and placed below or behind a matrix of flowing water. The diffraction surface can be illuminated by a low-cost LED, penetrating through the water matrix, generating a diffraction pattern containing information about the aqueous analytes, which can then be captured by a camera.…”