Abstract
Biomedical microfluidic devices are fabricated using different fabrication technologies. The most popular method is the soft-lithography manly due their main attraction, its high resolution capabilities and low material cost. However, usually, the fabrication of the moulds to produce microfluidic devices, is performed in a cleanroom environment and with specialized equipment that can be quite time consuming and costly. The micromilling is an alternative process that demonstrated potential to address some of the challenges in microdevices fabrication. It is a precise method, capable of creating complex channel geometries with specific measurements while ensuring a high level of resolution and a small error of tolerance, at the micron scale level. In fact, the non-necessity of a clean room, and being a fast and cheap manufacturing method makes it a great alternative to the traditional lithography process. Thus, in the present work, we show the ability of a micromilling machine to manufacture complex microchannels such as a curved T-shaped microchannel. By using a high-speed microscopic video system, flow visualizations and measurements were performed at four separation regions. Overall, the results show that the curved T-shaped microchannel is able to perform partial separation of blood cells from plasma.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Faustino, V., Catarino, S.O., Lima, R., Minas, G.: Biomedical microfluidic devices by using low-cost fabrication techniques: a review. J. Biomech. 49(11), 2280–2292 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2015.11.031
Hossain, M.M., Rahman, T.: Low cost micro milling machine for prototyping plastic microfluidic devices. Proceedings 2(13), 707 (2018). https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2130707
Pinto, V.P., Sousa, P.J., Cardoso, V.F., Minas, G.: Optimized SU-8 processing for low-cost microstructures fabrication without cleanroom facilities. Micromachines 5(3), 738–755 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3390/mi5030738
Guckenberger, D.J., de Groot, T.E., Wan, A.M.D., Beebe, D.J., Young, E.W.K.: Micromilling: a method for ultra-rapid prototyping of plastic microfluidic devices. Lab Chip 15(11), 2364–2378 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1039/c5lc00234f
Rincon Ardila, L., Wasnievski, L., Del Conte, E., Abackerli, A., Picarelli, T., Perroni, F., Schützer, K., Mewis, J., Uhlmann, E.: Micro-milling process for manufacturing of microfluidic moulds (2015). https://doi.org/10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1250
Faivre, M., Abkarian, M., Bickraj, K., Stone, H.A.: Geometrical focusing of cells in a microfluidic device: an approach to separate blood plasma. Biorheology 43(2), 147–159 (2006)
Lima, R.: Analysis of the blood flow behavior through microchannels by a confocal micro-PIV/PTV system. Ph.D. (Eng) (2007)
Pinho, D., Yaginuma, T., Lima, R.: A microfluidic device for partial cell separation and deformability assessment. BioChip J. 7(4), 367–374 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-013-7408-0
Rodrigues, R.O., Lopes, R., Pinho, D., Pereira, A.I., Garcia, V., Gassmann, S., Sousa, P.C., Lima, R.: In vitro blood flow and cell-free layer in hyperbolic microchannels: visualizations and measurements. BioChip J. 10(1), 9–15 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-016-0102-2
Saadatmand, M., Shimogonya, Y., Yamaguchi, T., Ishikawa, T.: Enhancing cell-free layer thickness by bypass channels in a wall. J. Biomech. 49(11), 2299–2305 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2015.11.032
Sollier, E., Cubizolles, M., Fouillet, Y., Achard, J.-L.: Fast and continuous plasma extraction from whole human blood based on expanding cell-free layer devices. Biomed. Microdevices 12(3), 485–497 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-010-9405-6
Pinto, E., Faustino, V., Rodrigues, R.O., Pinho, D., Garcia, V., Miranda, J.M., Lima, R.: A rapid and low-cost nonlithographic method to fabricate biomedical microdevices for blood flow analysis. Micromachines 6(1), 121–135 (2015)
Singhal, J., Pinho, D., Lopes, R., Sousa, P.C., Garcia, V., Schütte, H., Lima, R., Gassmann, S.: Blood flow visualization and measurements in microfluidic devices fabricated by a micromilling technique. Micro Nanosyst. 7(3), 148–153 (2015). https://doi.org/10.2174/1876402908666160106000332
Lopes, R., Rodrigues, R.O., Pinho, D., Garcia, V., Schütte, H., Lima, R., Gassmann, S.: Low cost microfluidic device for partial cell separation: micromilling approach. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT), 17–19 March 2015, pp. 3347–3350 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIT.2015.7125594
Madureira, M., Faustino, V., Schütte, H., Gassmann, S., Lima, R.: Blood cells separation in a T-shaped microchannel fabricated by a micromilling technique 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.24243/jmeb/2.5.171
Abràmoff, M.D., Magalhães, P.J., Ram, S.J.: Image processing with ImageJ. Biophotonics Int. 11(7), 36–42 (2004)
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the strategic grants UID/EEA/04436/2019, UID/EMS/04077/2019, and UID/EMS/00532/2019. The authors are also grateful for the funding of FCT through the projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016861, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-029394, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-030171, funded by COMPETE2020, NORTE2020, PORTUGAL2020, and FEDER, and the PhD grant SFRH/BD/91192/2012.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Madureira, M. et al. (2019). Red Blood Cells Separation in a Curved T-Shaped Microchannel Fabricated by a Micromilling Technique. In: Tavares, J., Natal Jorge, R. (eds) VipIMAGE 2019. VipIMAGE 2019. Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32040-9_59
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32040-9_59
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32039-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32040-9
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)