Microfluidic chips can be scaled up with the help of new bonding technologies

According to Memes Consulting, low-cost, disposable, card-sized plastic microfluidic chip preparation technology is expected to revolutionize point-of-care medical treatment because these chips can diagnose a series of blood from the spot. disease. A simple bonding technique will help make this vision a reality.

Microfluidic technology has been developed over the years and is limited due to the difficult and expensive task of bonding the plastic part of the chip, because the microfluidic chip needs to maintain the integrity of the microchannel to achieve its diagnostic function. Researchers at the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) collaborated with colleagues from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Seoul National University of Science and Technology to develop A bonding technique that overcomes many of the shortcomings of existing bonding methods has emerged. Gary Sum Huan Ng, a researcher at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, explains, “A key challenge in the commercialization of microfluidic devices is to reduce manufacturing costs. In the bonding process, the sealing of microchannels is often difficult to break through microfluidic control. The bottleneck. Microfluidic devices typically consist of plastic-etched microchannels that carry biological fluid samples into a reservoir of fluid or substrate, and the analytes in the sample remain active. Researchers have tried a variety of methods to combine the various parts of a microfluidic device. Most of the work is slow and difficult, and it is impossible to enter mass production. Ultrasonic welding technology uses high-frequency vibration to create solid-state welding, which is expected to expand the production scale of microfluidic chips. Because the technology is produced in a short period of time, it is tightly integrated and uses compact automation equipment. However, the quality of bonding produced by ultrasonic welding is difficult to control due to melting and bubble retention caused by excess. Researchers have shown that sandwiching a composite film between two plastic parts to be bonded can be very effective in preventing the flow of bubbles and melt generated during ultrasonic welding. The key to the technology is to incorporate thermoplastic microspheres into the composite film to help define and control melting. Ng said, "The thermoplastic microspheres will be dispersed in the elastic matrix to form a composite film. When ultrasonic energy is applied and a weld is produced, it acts as a micro-energy director to help complete the melting and collapse of the device. The ultrasonic director is subject to The elastic matrix constraint can effectively prevent uncontrolled melt flow and the generation of trapped bubbles. This method can overcome the key bonding problem in the mass production process of microfluidic devices." Extended reading: "Microfluidic industry Status - 2017 Edition