Abstract
A fully transparent and three-dimensional vascular model can be created by using consumer 3D printer to fabricate polymeric molds, casting with Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) from printed molds, and dissolution of molds with solvents. Unfortunately, the narrowness of channels makes removal of molds enclosed within the PDMS bulk very challenging. Ultrasonication has been used to accelerate the dissolution of polymeric molds through the effects of cavitation phenomenon, Taguchi method was used to study the most and least influential factor to the overall dissolution process. Experiment results show that: (1) ultrasonication can penetrate the PDMS bulk and improve the dissolution process of ABS rod enclosed in a PDMS bulk; (2) the volume of the PDMS device (E) has the largest influence while the ultrasonication time (B) has the least influence; (3) with those optimized parameters, a 3D and transparent vascular model with two curly channels was successfully demonstrated.
Highlights
Since 1979, microfluidics technology has been widely used in analytic chemistry and bioengineering [1]
The influence of each factor was determined using factor analysis based on the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), as calculated using Eq (1) [21], where yi2 indicates the sum of the dissolved weight
Ultrasonication time (B) presented the smallest range (1.79), indicating that it had the least influence on the process of dissolving an Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) rod enclosed within a PDMS bulk
Summary
Since 1979, microfluidics technology has been widely used in analytic chemistry and bioengineering [1]. After finishing the microfluidic device, bovine adrenal capillary endothelial cells (BCEs) were successfully cultured in this microfluidic device and were coated with two different fluorescence colors to demonstrate the 3D space structure inside a PDMS device. Wang’s group [9], in which they created a 3D microfluidic device to study the breast cancer tissue model. With this in-vitro 3D device, they can understand the influence of different therapeutic agents to the photodynamic therapy. Similar idea was realized to study the 3D bone tissue model, as an efficient tool to evaluate the efficacy
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