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Flexible Capillary Microfluidic Devices Based on Surface-Energy Modified Polydimethylsiloxane and Polymethylmethacrylate with Room-Temperature Chemical Bonding

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Abstract

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has been widely used for the rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices for biosensor cartridges. However, using PDMS to prototype capillary-driven microfluidic devices is often limited by the difficulty of maintaining the surface energy of surface-treated PDMS for an extended period in addition to the degradation of the biosensing elements during the bonding process at elevated temperature. Herein, prototyping of a flexible capillary microfluidic channel (FCMC) device based on the room-temperature bonding of the surface energy-modified PDMS (m-PDMS) microfluidic channel and a thermoplastic lid, polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), is introduced for prolonged control of passive liquid flow characteristics. The m-PDMS was fabricated by blending polydimethylsiloxane-ethylene oxide (60–70%) block copolymer (PDMS-b-PEO) additive with pre-PDMS, of which the water contact angles could be controlled between 38.5° and 78.5° by adjusting the ratio of the two components. Room-temperature bonding of the m-PDMS and PMMA sheets functionalized by 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane and aminopropyltriethoxysilane, respectively, was introduced to fabricate the FCMC devices via the formation of a stable linker epoxy-amine without the requirement of elevated temperatures. The FCMC device possessed longevity to passively drive liquid in the channel for 2 months under ambient conditions due to the prolonged stable hydrophilicity of m-PDMS. The proposed approaches provide great potential for prototyping passive microfluidic devices for biosensor cartridge applications.

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Acknowledgements

Lai Thi Ngoc Huyen and Seok Ju Hong contributed equally to this work. This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program (no. 2019R1A6A1A03033215) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education and the Nano Material Technology Development Program (NRF-2021M3H4A4079521) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT, & Future Planning.

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  1. Lai Thi Ngoc Huyen and Seok Ju Hong have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

    Lai Thi Ngoc Huyen, Seok Ju Hong, Tran Quang Trung & Nae-Eung Lee

  2. SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

    Montri Meeseepong, A Ri Kim & Nae-Eung Lee

  3. Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences and Technology (SAIHST), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

    Nae-Eung Lee

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  1. Lai Thi Ngoc Huyen
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Contributions

LTNH: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft. HSJ: conceptualization, methodology, data curation. TQT: conceptualization, writing—review and editing. MM: data curation (cell culture). ARK: data curation (cell culture). N-EL: conceptualization, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Nae-Eung Lee.

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Huyen, L.T.N., Hong, S.J., Trung, T.Q. et al. Flexible Capillary Microfluidic Devices Based on Surface-Energy Modified Polydimethylsiloxane and Polymethylmethacrylate with Room-Temperature Chemical Bonding. BioChip J 17, 120–132 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-023-00096-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-023-00096-1

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