Teflon-Patterned Paper

Abstract

Most chemical reactions perform best when shaken or stirred. Active mixing maximizes the chances that reactant molecules will find one another. But chemists who are exploiting small-volume reactions on paper, which is a low-cost platform for synthesis and screening, rarely achieve such thorough mixing. A team in Canada now suggests a solution for that issue: printing Teflon barriers onto paper (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201402037). The barriers direct where excess solvent seeps through, promoting mixing. The researchers, led by Ratmir Derda of the University of Alberta, used the technique to build 96 small peptides side by side on a sheet of paper about the size of an index card. Printing barriers on paper isn’t a new idea, and researchers have used specially treated liquid-repelling paper before. But combining the barrier and liquid-repulsion concepts provides an improvement over established techniques, says Marya Lieberman, who builds paper analytical devices at ...