BNN members involved

• Erwin Berthier (contact person)
• Volker Nock

Description

The microfluidics field has undergone a great expansion since the generalization of the usage of PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) as a microchannel substrate. PDMS offers a great number of interesting chemical and mechanical properties, among which are a very high biocompatibility, a good ease of use and a real versatility. A single person can now create in less than a day a complete microfluidic device using this polymer.

The Department of Electrical and Computer engineering of the University of Canterbury decided implement a number of the microfluidic projects and has set up a project to start PDMS experiments. The Department already had a good knowledge of photoresist polymers; therefore the creation of SU-8 molds based on silicon wafers was a natural starting point for theses experiments. The ultimate aim of this project is to couple it with the work of others to create an autonomous integrated fluidic circuit for biomedical usage.

So far a good progress has been made in the creation of microfluidic channels. Binding of PDMS on to a flat glass substrate has been achieved as well as multilayer PDMS binding. Fluid flow in simple 200 micron channels has been attained also and reasonably characterized. Moreover the control of fluid flow is getting possible by pneumatic valves intergrated in the multilayer devices. The next step in this project is to go towards further integration of fluid channels, which means a higher complexity in the channel scheme, and also the creation of microfluidic devices such as microvalves and micropumps.