| Recently,inertial microfluidics has been attracting considerable interests in medical diagnosis,biomedical and environmental monitoring due to the continuous development of micro-fabrication technique.Microfluidics is gradually extending from laboratories to commercial applications,leading to an emergent need for exploring low-cost,high-volume manufacturing technology.Based on the flow-rate regulation characteristics of the passive flow regulator,we investigated fabrication methods and applications of pumpless and low-cost microfluidic chips integrated with the flow regulator using 3D printing and laser direct writing.Detailed works of this article are elucidated as follows.(1)The performance characterization and particle enrichment experiments of 3D printed inertial microfluidic devices were studied.The traditional 3D printed method of the spiral structures was improved,and the sections of micro-channel were carefully detected.In order to reduce the processing cost of the device,the assembly of the microfluidic device was completed by using double faced adhesive tape and thread sealing scheme.Combined with the specialty of automated cell counter,the optimized flow rate range of various particles enrichment was obtained through the quantification of the concentration efficiency determined by driving flow rate and initial concentration of the solution.When extending the rigid particles into complex biological cells,the concentration experiment results show that the 3D printed device has a positive effect on the concentration of dispersed pollen particles and deformable tumor cells.(2)The regulation of the passive flow regulator and blood plasma separation of integrated devices were studied.In order to meet the requirements of real-time detection of low-cost microfluidic devices,the integration of a microfluidic device and a passive flow regulator was designed.Firstly,the influence of the height of the regulator chamber,the diameter of the through hole of the elastic film and the fluctuation of the input pressures on the output flow was studied by means of the experimental measurement and the fluid solid coupling simulation.Secondly,the flow regulator and inertial device were connected in series because of the characteristics of them.Not only does the integrated device have the characteristics of the regulator eliminating the fluctuation of inlet pressures,it is also capable of manipulating particles in microfluidic chips.Finally,the experiment of extracting blood plasma with different dilution ratios was carried out by manually operating integrated devices.(3)The fabrication of high-throughput flow regulators and multilayer film chips was studied,then the mechanism of high-throughput integrated devices manipulating particles was investigated.The fabrication methods and integrated applications of high-throughput flow regulators and multilayer polymer thin film chip were studied by means of a low-cost and high-volume laser directing writing processing.First of all,the technology of laser cutting and roll-to-roll lamination was explored,and the optimal process parameters of different materials were obtained,facilitating subsequent fabrication of integrated device.Then,in order to improve output flow of the regulator,a flow regulator with three branches in parallel was designed.The experimental results showed that the constant flow of the regulator increased to 9.95 ml/min.The vertical stacking design and assembly of four-layer polymer film chips were completed by improving the traditional scheme.Finally the concentration of the microalgae was realized by the integration of high-throughput regulator and multilayer polymer film chips,which has the potential to be widely applied in environment monitoring in a not very distant future. |
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