Abstract
Bonding is the key process in the fabrication of close-channel microfluidic devices. In the general fabrication approach of microfluidic devices, the substrate was processed with various kinds of microfabrication methods for the formation of the microchannel, then a cover plate (the same or different material to the substrate) was bonded to the substrate to enclose the microchannel. Various bonding methods have been previously reported which mainly focused on the bonding between thermoplastics or polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)–glass bonding. In the past few years, the hybrid bonding between thermoplastics and PDMS was found to be useful to lower the cost and increase the flexibility of PDMS-based microfluidics, and the current approaches for thermoplastic–PDMS bonding are usually involved a series of chemical treatment processes (e.g., salinization). To simplify the bonding process between thermoplastic and PDMS, in this study, a low-cost, low-residue, easy-to-process bonding method was proposed with the help of silicone/acrylic differential double-sided adhesive tape. The differential tape consists of a silicone adhesive layer on one side and an acrylic adhesive layer on the other side, and during the hybrid bonding process, the silicone adhesive layer was bonded with PDMS substrate after a corona treatment process, while the acrylic adhesive layer bonded directly with the thermoplastic plate (polymethyl methacrylate and cyclic olefin copolymer) under the room temperature through a roller laminator. The whole hybrid bonding process is simple and without a chemical surface treatment process, and the bonding strength is also comparable to conventional bonding approaches. More importantly, the enclosed channel on PDMS substrate has consistent properties (e.g., water contact angle) on all four side walls, which may have significant advantages in sophisticated microfluidic applications like droplet generation. The bonding strength tests and biocompatibility tests were also conducted in this study.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
H. Becker, L.E. Locascio, Polymer microfluidic devices. Talanta 56(2), 267–287 (2002)
H. Wu, J. Zhu, Y. Huang, D. Wu, J. Sun, Microfluidic-based single-cell study: current status and future perspective. Molecules 23(9), 2347 (2018)
E. Gal-Or et al., Chemical analysis using 3D printed glass microfluidics. Anal. Methods 11(13), 1802–1810 (2019)
D.R. Reyes et al., Accelerating innovation and commercialization through standardization of microfluidic-based medical devices. Lab Chip 21(1), 9–21 (2021)
Y. Fan, S. Liu, J. He, K. Gao, Y. Zhang, Rapid and low-cost hot-embossing of polycaprolactone microfluidic devices. Mater. Res. Express 5(1), 015305 (2018)
Y. Li, J.D. Motschman, S.T. Kelly, B.B. Yellen, Injection molded microfluidics for establishing high-density single cell arrays in an open hydrogel format. Anal. Chem. 92(3), 2794–2801 (2020)
S.A.M. Shaegh et al., Rapid prototyping of whole-thermoplastic microfluidics with built-in microvalves using laser ablation and thermal fusion bonding. Sens. Actuators B 255, 100–109 (2018)
S. Ng, Z. Wang, Hot roller embossing for microfluidics: process and challenges. Microsyst. Technol. 15(8), 1149–1156 (2009)
X. Ma, R. Li, Z. Jin, Y. Fan, X. Zhou, Y. Zhang, Injection molding and characterization of PMMA-based microfluidic devices. Microsyst. Technol. 26(4), 1317–1324 (2020)
I. Bilican, M.T. Guler, Assessment of PMMA and polystyrene based microfluidic chips fabricated using CO2 laser machining. Appl. Surf. Sci. 534, 147642 (2020)
C.-Y. Yen, M.-C.O. Chang, Z.-F. Shih, Y.-H. Lien, C.-W. Tsao, Cyclic block copolymer microchannel fabrication and sealing for microfluidics applications. Inventions 3(3), 49 (2018)
M. Kiran Raj, S. Chakraborty, PDMS microfluidics: a mini review. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 137(27), 48958 (2020)
T. Fujii, PDMS-based microfluidic devices for biomedical applications. Microelectron. Eng. 61, 907–914 (2002)
G.M. Whitesides, E. Ostuni, S. Takayama, X. Jiang, D.E. Ingber, Soft lithography in biology and biochemistry. Annu. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 3(1), 335–373 (2001)
A. Borók, K. Laboda, A. Bonyár, PDMS bonding technologies for microfluidic applications: a review. Biosensors 11(8), 292 (2021)
C.-W. Tsao, D.L. DeVoe, Bonding of thermoplastic polymer microfluidics. Microfluid. Nanofluid. 6(1), 1–16 (2009)
M.A. Eddings, M.A. Johnson, B.K. Gale, Determining the optimal PDMS–PDMS bonding technique for microfluidic devices. J. Micromech. Microeng. 18(6), 067001 (2008)
Y.-C. Hsu, T.-Y. Chen, Applying Taguchi methods for solvent-assisted PMMA bonding technique for static and dynamic μ-TAS devices. Biomed. Microdevices 9(4), 513–522 (2007)
L.S. Shiroma et al., Self-regenerating and hybrid irreversible/reversible PDMS microfluidic devices. Sci. Rep. 6(1), 1–12 (2016)
S. Hassanpour-Tamrin, A. Sanati-Nezhad, A. Sen, A simple and low-cost approach for irreversible bonding of polymethylmethacrylate and polydimethylsiloxane at room temperature for high-pressure hybrid microfluidics. Sci. Rep. 11(1), 1–12 (2021)
R. Sivakumar, N.Y. Lee, Heat and pressure-resistant room temperature irreversible sealing of hybrid PDMS–thermoplastic microfluidic devices via carbon–nitrogen covalent bonding and its application in a continuous-flow polymerase chain reaction. RSC Adv. 10(28), 16502–16509 (2020)
Y. Ren, S. Ray, Y. Liu, Reconfigurable acrylic-tape hybrid microfluidics. Sci. Rep. 9(1), 1–10 (2019)
M.K. Mulligan, J.P. Rothstein, Deformation and breakup of micro- and nanoparticle stabilized droplets in microfluidic extensional flows. Langmuir 27(16), 9760–9768 (2011)
S.-Y. Teh, R. Lin, L.-H. Hung, A.P. Lee, Droplet microfluidics. Lab Chip 8(2), 198–220 (2008)
Funding
The authors have not disclosed any funding.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
YL performed the fabrication and testing of microfluidic chips. XW collected the data and performed the analysis. YW conceived and designed the experimental process. YF supervised this study and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Li, Y., Wang, X., Wang, Y. et al. Low-cost hybrid bonding between thermoplastics and PDMS with differential adhesive tape for microfluidic devices. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 565 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-09998-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-09998-0