Abstract
There is a great interest in low-cost, versatile microfluidic platforms of which the fabrication processes are rapid, straightforward, and translatable to industrial mass productions. In addition, it is beneficial for microfluidic devices to be reconfigurable in the field, so that multiple functions can be realized by a minimum number of devices. Here, we present a versatile acrylic-tape platform which allows highly accessible rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices, as well as device reconfiguration to realize different functions. The clean-room-free fabrication and sealing process only requires a laser cutter, acrylic, and tapes and can be done by an untrained person in the field. We experimentally characterized the relationship between the capillary flow speed and the channel height, the latter of which can be well controlled by the fabrication process. Reconfiguration of microfluidic functions was demonstrated on a single acrylic-tape device, thanks to the reversible sealing enabled by functional tapes. Different pumping mechanisms, including on-chip pumps for better portability and syringe pumps for precise fluid control, have been employed for the demonstration of two-phase flow and droplet generation, respectively. The low-cost and versatile acrylic-tape microfluidic devices are promising tools for applications in a wide range of fields, especially for point-of-care biomedical and clinical applications.
Highlights
Since the first demonstration[1], polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has been a dominant microfluidic platform with applications across a wide range of fields, including biology[2,3,4], chemistry[2,5], soft electronics[6], and biomedical analyses[7]
One important parameter of a microfluidic device is its characteristic length, which is directly related to the Reynolds number and the capillary action of the channel[21]
The tape-based reversible sealing mechanism is reliable for long-term applications and allows reconfiguration of device functions to be carried out in the field
Summary
Since the first demonstration[1], polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has been a dominant microfluidic platform with applications across a wide range of fields, including biology[2,3,4], chemistry[2,5], soft electronics[6], and biomedical analyses[7]. Various alternative microfluidic platforms have been proposed to address the challenges of PDMS platform, including paper microfluidics9,10, 3D-printed microfluidics[11,12], injection-molded blocks microfluidics[13], and acrylic microfluidic[14,15,16,17,18,19] The fabrication of these platforms does not need clean room facilities or plasma bonding as PDMS devices do. 3D-printed and injection-molded blocks microfluidics have benefits of function reconfigurability, which means the functions of the microfluidic devices can be changed without the need of fabricating new parts This is realized by their modular designs[11,12,13], which enable different blocks to be rearranged in the field to provide different functions. These results indicate that acrylic-tape microfluidics is a suitable platform for applications including device prototyping, point-of-care testing, and clinical bioanalyses
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