Abstract
A chemically powered channelless microfluidic device was designed, fabricated, and characterized. The device consists of an asymmetric silver–gold bimetallic catalytic junction fabricated on a silicon dioxide surface. The decomposition of hydrogen peroxide at the silver–gold interface generates a proton gradient and an associated electric field which in turn drives electroosmosis and electrophoresis when a charged particle is present in the vicinity of the field. By engineering an asymmetric device consisting of an isolated junction, continuous electroosmotic fluid flow across the device has been achieved. In addition, a new device geometry has been developed which is capable of focusing and directing negatively charged particles along a desired path without the need of microchannels. The efficiency and ease of the fabrication suggest the possibility of many versatile applications including biological molecule sorting and manipulation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Catchmark JM, Subramanian S, Sen A (2005) Directed rotational motion of microscale objects using interfacial tension gradients continually generated via catalytic reactions. Small 1:202–206
Dhar P, Fischer TM, Wang Y, Mallouk TE, Sen A (2006) Autonomously moving nanorods at a viscous interface. Nano Lett 6:66–72
Eriksson E, Enger J, Nordlander B, Erjavec N, Ramser K, Goksör M, Hohmann S, Nyström T, Hanstorp D (2007) A microfluidic system in combination with optical tweezers for analyzing rapid and reversible cytological alterations in single cells upon environmental changes. Lab Chip 7:71–76
Fournier-Bidoz E, Arsenault AC, Manners I, Ozin GA (2005) Synthetic self-propelled nanorotors. Chem Commun 4:441–443
Giesbers M, Kleijn JM, Cohen Stuart MA (2002) The electrical double layer on gold probed by electrokinetic and surface force measurements. J Colloid Interface Sci 248(1):88–95
Gonzalez CF, Remcho VT (2009) Fabrication and evaluation of a ratchet type dielectrophoretic device for particle analysis. J Chromatogr A 1216(52):9063–9070
Huang Y, Ewalt KL, Tirado M, Haigis R, Forster A, Ackley D, Heller MJ, O’Connell JP, Krihak M (2001) Electric manipulation of bioparticles and macromolecules on microfabricated electrodes. Anal Chem 73:1549–1559
Kline TR, Paxton WF, Wang Y, Velegol D, Mallouk TE, Sen A (2005) Catalytic micropumps: microscopic convective fluid flow and pattern formation. J Am Chem Soc 127:17150–17151
Kline TR, Iwata J, Lammert PE, Mallouk TE, Sen A, Velegol D (2006) Catalytically driven colloidal patterning and transport. J Phys Chem B 110:24513–24521
Lowalekar V, Raghavana S, Pandit V, Parks HG, Jeon J (2006) Contamination of silicon dioxide films by aqueous zirconium and hafnium species. J Appl Phys 99(2):024503
MacDonald MP, Spalding GC, Dholakia K (2003) Microfluidic sorting in an optical lattice. Nature 426:421–424
Mirowski E, Moreland J, Russek SE, Donahue MJ (2004) Integrated microfluidic isolation platform for magnetic particle manipulation in biological systems. Appl Phy Lett 84(10):1786–1788
Paxton WF, Kistler KC, Olmeda CC, Sen A, St. Angelo SK, Cao Y, Mallouk TE, Lammert PE, Crespi VH (2004) Catalytic nanomotors: autonomous movement of striped nanorods. J Am Chem Soc 126:13424–13431
Paxton WF, Sen A, Mallouk TE (2005) Motility of catalytic nanoparticles through self-generated forces. Chem Eur J 11:6462–6470
Qu BY, Wu ZY, Fang F, Bai ZM, Yang DZ, Xu SK (2008) A glass microfluidic chip for continuous blood cell sorting by a magnetic gradient without labeling. Anal Bioanal Chem 392:1317
Shyue J, De Guire MR, Nakanishi T, Masuda Y, Koumoto K, Sukenik CN (2004) Acid–base properties and zeta potentials of self-assembled monolayers obtained via in situ transformations. Langmuir 20:8693–8698
Stroock AD, Weck M, Chiu DT, Huck WTS, Kenis PJA, Ismagilov RF, Whitesides GM (2000) Patterning electro-osmotic flow with patterned surface charge. Phys Rev Lett 84(15):3314–3317
Subramanian S, Catchmark JM (2007) Control of catalytically generated electroosmotic fluid flow through surface zeta potential engineering. J Phys Chem C 111:11959–11964
Tai C-H, Hsiung S-K, Chen C-Y, Tsai M-L, Lee G-B (2007) Automatic microfluidic platform for cell separation and nucleus collection. Biomed Microdevices 9:533–543
Wang Y, Hernandez RM, Bartlett DJ, Bingham JM, Kline TR, Sen A, Mallouk TE (2006) Bipolar electrochemical mechanism for the propulsion of catalytic nanomotors in hydrogen peroxide solutions. Langmuir 22:10451–10456
Yang AHJ, Moore SD, Schmidt BS, Klug M, Lipson M, Erickson D (2009) Optical manipulation of nanoparticles and biomolecules in sub-wavelength slot waveguides. Nature 457:71–75
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science; NSF Grant DMR-0213623; NSF-NIRT Grant CTS-0506967; National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement 0335765; the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, with Cornell University; and The Pennsylvania State University Materials Research Institute. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions made by Rachel Rorick for device fabrication.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary material 1 (MPG 8666 kb)
Supplementary material 2 (MPG 9602 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, J., Catchmark, J.M. A catalytically powered electrokinetic lens: toward channelless microfluidics. Microfluid Nanofluid 10, 1147–1151 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-010-0757-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-010-0757-2