Effects of liquid viscosity, surface wettability and channel geometry on capillary flow in SU8 based microfluidic devices

Abstract

The capillary flow in SU8 based microfluidic devices fabricated in SF-100 by lithographic technique has been recorded and analysed in this report. Leakage free microfluidic flow is achieved by indirect bonding between polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) coated glass lid surface and SU8 channel substrate during hard baking. The working liquids are dyed ethylene glycol, dyed ethanol, dyed isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and dyed liquid mixture (water and IPA). The capillary flow of dyed ethylene glycol is found to be slower in each device due to higher viscosity and lower surface wettability as compared to other working liquids. Square SU8 micropillar arrays (80μm and 120μm of side lengths) are fabricated on the glass bottom wall surface of SU8 based microchannel. The capillary flow of any particular working liquid is observed to be faster through the square micropillars of smaller side length due to their lower surface area to volume ratio in the device. Also, the capillary flow of polar liquids is found to be faster on the microchannel surface of higher polar component of surface free energy. The above results are highly significant to control the speed of capillary flow in lab-on-a-chip systems.