Laminated thin-film Teflon chips for petrochemical applications

Abstract

We present Teflon-based microfluidic chips fabricated by laminating multiple layers of laser-cut Teflon film. In addition to being solvent-resistant, these chips enable simple multilayer fabrication, have uniform rectangular cross-section and are sufficiently thin to (1) reduce cost, (2) enable rapid temperature control, and (3) provide optical transparency. The chips can be fabricated without a cleanroom from start to finish in less than 2 h. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by measuring the displacement of an oil solution by carbon dioxide in a nine-layer thin-film Teflon chip modelling porous media. Optical transparency through the 9-layers enables the determination of an oil recovery rate. We also demonstrate a thin-film chip measurement of the viscosity of heavy oil/toluene mixtures.