Physicochemically modified polymer-based fluidic gates with tunable wetting properties for intelligent liquid manipulations

Abstract

The creation of a selective flow path and the regulation of a flow rate are of critical importance for polymer-based devices that manipulate liquid at the microscale. The formation of a 3D interconnected network of voids (i.e., physical volumetric modification) and the addition of a nonionic surfactant, Silwet L-77, (i.e., chemical volumetric modification) are expected to affect the wetting properties of polymers, thereby achieving selective gating effect in the polymer-based devices as an appropriate technology. Here, a set of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based fluidic gates (F-gates) were developed to enable selectivity for liquids and flow-rate control of the liquids by tuning the wetting properties of PDMS with the physicochemical volumetric modifications. For water and oil with different surface tensions (STs), the effects of the physical and chemical volumetric modifications on the fluidic gating of PDMS were quantitatively characterized in terms of contact angle, mass flow rate, and liquid absorption speed. The applicability of PDMS-based F-gates to the selective separation of oil and water even from oil-in-water emulsion was demonstrated by fabricating Janus PDMS-based F-gates. Our physicochemical volumetric modifications were also extensively analyzed to examine whether they satisfy the technological, economic, and ecological requirements of appropriate technology. This is the first effort to tailor the wetting properties of PDMS through physicochemical volumetric modifications, thus configuring a set of PDMS-based F-gates that act both as a separator for liquids of different STs and as a switch for fluid flows.