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Modeling of capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection on microfluidic chips

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Abstract

A novel equivalent circuit model of capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C4D) on microfluidic chips is presented. The impedance of the solution in microchannels facing the two electrodes for C4D was first introduced in the model of C4D on microfluidic chips. The electrodes and the solution facing electrodes were divided into individual segments in the model, and the effect of the length of divided segments on the model was studied. A back-calculating method was put forward to calculate the stray capacitance between the electrodes, and the variation between the calculated value and the simulated value was only 6 %. To evaluate the accuracy of the model, a hybrid poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchip was fabricated and a simple model was built. Compared with the outputs of the simple model, the data predicted by the novel model show a much closer fit to experimental results, and the variations were within 8 % over a wide concentration range of 1–500 μm for potassium chloride.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51075056) (91023046), the National High-tech R&D Program of China (2012AA040406), and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of China (NCET-10-0284).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Precision and Non-Traditional Machining Technology of Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, 116024, Dalian, China

    Junshan Liu, Liangkun An, Zheng Xu, Ning Wang, Xiaochong Yan, Liqun Du, Chong Liu & Liding Wang

  2. Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Technology and System of Liaoning Province, Dalian University of Technology, 116024, Dalian, China

    Junshan Liu, Zheng Xu, Chong Liu & Liding Wang

Authors
  1. Junshan Liu
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  2. Liangkun An
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  3. Zheng Xu
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  4. Ning Wang
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  5. Xiaochong Yan
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  6. Liqun Du
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  7. Chong Liu
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  8. Liding Wang
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Correspondence to Junshan Liu.

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Liu, J., An, L., Xu, Z. et al. Modeling of capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection on microfluidic chips. Microsyst Technol 19, 1991–1996 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-013-1736-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-013-1736-9

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