A 3D printed centrifugal microfluidic platform for spilled oil enrichment and detection based on solid phase extraction (SPE)

Abstract

Portable devices for real time monitoring of oil pollution in coastal water can be very useful in environmental protections. This is particularly true after the disastrous BP oil spill in Gulf of Mexico and huge amount of residual oil drifted to the costal water system. Fluorescence detection method is one of the most popular method adopted to determine the existence and concentration of the oil in water. When polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in crude oil is excited by ultra-violet (UV) light, fluorescent light with wavelengths from 400 nm to 650 nm is emitted. To realize the detection of trace oil pollution in water, solid phase extraction (SPE) is widely used to enrich the PAHs in the sample for enhanced detection sensitivity. However, conventional methods to enrich and detect PAHs usually need to be conducted in the lab because professional equipment are required and the operations are complicated and time consuming. This paper reports a novel centrifugal microfluidic platform for automatically detecting trace oil pollution in test sample. Mechanical valves were used to control the flow of the reagents and water sample in the device. The prototype of the proposed system was fabricated using 3D printing technology and tested with 10 ppm standard oil-water mixing sample. Different stationary sorbents were tested and compared. The experimental results had proved that the detection sensitivity of the water-oil mixture sample can be significantly enhanced after it was enriched using the centrifugal microfluidic platform. The study has proved the functionality of the 3D printed centrifugal microfluidic platform and demonstrated it can potentially be used as a portable, real time, in-situ detection for oil detection device.