Development of a microfluidic design for an automatic lab-on-chip operation

Abstract

Simple and easy to use are the keys for developing lab-on-chip technology. Here, a new microfluidic circuit has been designed for an automatic lab-onchip operation (ALOCO) device. This chip used capillary forces for controlled and precise manipulation of liquids, which were loaded in sequence from different flowing directions towards the analysis area. Using the ALOCO design, a non-expert user is able to operate the chip by pipetting liquids into suitable inlet reservoirs. To test this design, microfluidic devices were fabricated using the programmable proximity aperture lithography (PPAL) technique. The operation of the ALOCO chip was characterized from the flow of red-, blue-and un-dyed deionized (DI) water. Experimental result indicated that red water, which filled first the analysis area, was substituted entirely with blue water. Controlled sequential flows of these water in the ALOCO device are demonstrated in this paper.

An autonomous electrochemically-actuated microvalve for controlled transport in stand-alone microfluidic systems

“…To meet this demand, a variety of microuidic components based on microfabrication techniques have been reported. [3][4][5][6][7][8] However, device structure and function tend to be complicated making integration of many components for multiplexed solution processing problematic.…”