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Numerical and experimental study of capillary-driven flow of PCR solution in hybrid hydrophobic microfluidic networks

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Abstract

Capillary-driven microfluidics is essential for development of point-of-care diagnostic micro-devices. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based micro-devices are widely developed and used in such point-of-care settings. It is imperative to characterize the fluid parameters of PCR solution for designing efficient capillary-driven microfluidic networks. Generally, for numeric modelling, the fluid parameters of PCR solution are approximated to that of water. This procedure leads to inaccurate results, which are discrepant to experimental data. This paper describes mathematical modeling and experimental validation of capillary-driven flow inside Poly-(dimethyl) siloxane (PDMS)-glass hybrid micro-channels. Using experimentally measured PCR fluid parameters, the capillary meniscus displacement in PDMS-glass microfluidic ladder network is simulated using computational fluid dynamic (CFD), and experimentally verified to match with the simulated data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fluidigm Corporation, 7000 Shoreline Court, South San Francisco, CA, 94080, USA

    Naveen Ramalingam

  2. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Naveen Ramalingam, Liu Hao-Bing & Thomas Gong Hai-Qing

  3. School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Australian Center for NanoMedicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia

    Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani & Gholamreza Keshavarzi

  4. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Neevan Ramalingam

  5. Wisewater Pte Ltd., 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, Singapore, 139951, Singapore

    Liu Hao-Bing

Authors
  1. Naveen Ramalingam
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  2. Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani
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  3. Neevan Ramalingam
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  4. Gholamreza Keshavarzi
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  5. Liu Hao-Bing
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  6. Thomas Gong Hai-Qing
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Naveen Ramalingam or Thomas Gong Hai-Qing.

Additional information

This research was performed while Naveen Ramalingam and Liu Hao-Bing were at School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore.

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Ramalingam, N., Warkiani, M.E., Ramalingam, N. et al. Numerical and experimental study of capillary-driven flow of PCR solution in hybrid hydrophobic microfluidic networks. Biomed Microdevices 18, 68 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-016-0099-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-016-0099-2

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