Fabrication of UV-Curing Polyurethane Methacrylate (PUMA) Microchannel and Fluidics Interconnect for Microfluidics Applications

Abstract

Microfluidics platform offers a great advantage in bio-sensing and clinical diagnostics miniaturization. The requirement of inexpensive and rapid-prototyping materials are essential in microfluidics device commercialization. This paper presents rapid prototyping of UV-curing Polyurethane Methacrylate (PUMA) microchannel from the Polydimethlsiloxane (PDMS) mold. Two techniques in PUMA microchannel UV-curing rapid prototyping have successfully demonstrated in this work. The first technique utilized thin film transparency sheet as PUMA resin top surface cover in facilitating PUMA UV-curing. The second method exploited confined nitrogen gas environment in Pyrex dish chamber in expediting PUMA curing under UV light exposure. In this work, two different approaches of fluidic interconnect tubings for PUMA microchannel inlet and outlet are also presented. Reversible bonding techniques using corona discharge treatment are utilized for bonding of PUMA microchannel and fluidic interconnect with PUMA, silicon, glass and PDMS substrate. Accomplishment of preliminary fluid flow testing using PUMA microchannel proved its capability for microfluidics applications.