Issue 23, 2013

A programmable and reconfigurable microfluidic chip

Abstract

This article reports an original concept enabling the rapid fabrication of continuous-flow microfluidic chips with a programmable and reconfigurable geometry. The concept is based on a digital microfluidic platform featuring an array of individually addressable electrodes. A selection of electrodes is switched on sequentially to create a de-ionized (DI) water finger specific pattern, while the surrounding medium consists of liquid-phase paraffin. The water displacement is induced by both electrowetting on dielectric and liquid dielectrophoresis phenomena. Once the targeted DI water pattern is obtained, the chip temperature is lowered by turning on an integrated thermoelectric cooler, forming channel structures made of solidified paraffin with edges delimitated by the DI water pattern. As a result, the chip can be used afterwards to conduct in-flow continuous microfluidic experiments. This process is resettable and reversible by heating up the chip to melt the paraffin and reconfigure the microchannel design on demand, offering the advantages of cost, adaptability, and robustness. This paper reports experimental results describing the overall concept, which is illustrated with typical and basic fluidic geometries.

Graphical abstract: A programmable and reconfigurable microfluidic chip

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Jul 2013
Accepted
13 Sep 2013
First published
16 Sep 2013

Lab Chip, 2013,13, 4517-4524

A programmable and reconfigurable microfluidic chip

R. Renaudot, V. Agache, Y. Fouillet, G. Laffite, E. Bisceglia, L. Jalabert, M. Kumemura, D. Collard and H. Fujita, Lab Chip, 2013, 13, 4517 DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50850A

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