Programmable thermally actuated wax valve for low-cost nonwoven-based microfluidic systems
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TECHNICAL PAPER
Programmable thermally actuated wax valve for low-cost nonwovenbased microfluidic systems Jing Zhang1 • Lei Huang2 • Yiqiang Fan2,3 Luyao Liu1 • Xianbo Qiu1
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Lulu Zhang1 • Guijun Miao1 • Chi Xu1 • Xiaobin Dong1
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Received: 29 April 2020 / Accepted: 7 May 2020 Ó Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Nonwoven-based microfluidics is an emerging field in low-cost microfluidics as another alternative to paper-based microfluidics. Comparing with the conventional paper material that has been widely used in low-cost microfluidics, the cost of nonwoven fabric material is the same range, but with the advantages of higher mechanical strength and a wider choice of chemical/physical properties. In this study, we proposed a novel method for defining a programmable and singleuse wax valve on nonwoven-based microfluidic devices. The nonwoven-based microfluidic devices were fabricated using wax-printing and thermal reflow approach to define the basic microchannels for fluid penetration. Then, another layer of wax material contain valve structures were deposited on the surface of the microchannels, each wax valve structure has a corresponding heater resistor that can trigger the wax penetration to block (close) the microchannel. With the controlled thermal actuator operation, the fluid penetration inside the porous media of nonwoven fabric microchannel can be programmed with the control of wax valves. A chemical method for reopening the microchannels was also introduced in this study. The proposed programmable wax valve on nonwoven-based microfluidics is easily accessible with low-cost for point-of-care applications in biological and medical fields.
1 Introduction Microfluidics has been widely used in the biological, chemical, environmental and medical fields in the recent decade [1–3]. The microfluidic devices have multiple advantages comparing with the conventional approach, including low reagent consumption, high sensitivity, high accuracy, low energy consumption, disposable, etc. Early microfluidic devices were usually made with silicon or glass materials, with the fabrication methods inherited from MEMS (microelectromechanical) or IC industry [4, 5]. In recent years, silicon or glass materials were gradually replaced with the polymer materials (e.g. PDMS, PMMA, COC) as the bulk material for microfluidic devices [6]. & Xianbo Qiu [email protected] 1
School of Information Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
2
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
3
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
With the wide applications of microfluidic devices in biological and medical fields, researchers were trying to find more low-cost and easily accessible materials and fabrication methods for microfluidic devices. Paper-based microfluidics was first introduc
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