An all-glass bifurcation microfluidic chip for blood plasma separation was fabricated by a cost-effective glass molding process using an amorphous carbon (AC) mold, which in turn was fabricated by the carbonization of a replicated furan precursor. To compensate for the shrinkage during AC mold fabrication, an enlarged photoresist pattern master was designed, and an AC mold with a dimensional error of 2.9% was achieved; the dimensional error of the master pattern was 1.6%. In the glass molding process, a glass microchannel plate with negligible shape errors (~1.5%) compared to AC mold was replicated. Finally, an all-glass bifurcation microfluidic chip was realized by micro drilling and thermal fusion bonding processes. A separation efficiency of 74% was obtained using the fabricated all-glass bifurcation microfluidic chip.
This study reports a cost-effective method of replicating glass microfluidic chips using a vitreous carbon (VC) stamp. A glass replica with the required microfluidic microstructures was synthesized without etching. The replication method uses a VC stamp fabricated by combining thermal replication using a furan-based, thermally-curable polymer with carbonization. To test the feasibility of this method, a flow focusing droplet generator with flow-focusing and channel widths of 50 µm and 100 µm, respectively, was successfully fabricated in a soda-lime glass substrate. Deviation between the geometries of the initial shape and the vitreous carbon mold occurred because of shrinkage during the carbonization process, however this effect could be predicted and compensated for. Finally, the monodispersity of the droplets generated by the fabricated microfluidic device was evaluated.
A glass microfluidic device with superior chemical and mechanical resistance was fabricated using a cost-effective glass molding process with a vitreous carbon (VC) mold, which was prepared by the carbonization of a replicated polymer precursor. For the development of microfluidic chips with dense microchannels on a large footprint, a defect-free VC mold is essential. In this study, a furan imprinting process, in which a patterned furan layer was imprinted (cured) on a polished furan plate, was established to minimize warpage and gas bubble defects. In addition, the proposed imprinting process markedly reduced the fabrication time of the furan precursor. For feasibility testing, a glass micromixer with a total channel length of 30.6 cm and footprint of 20 × 20 mm 2 was developed by glass molding with the VC mold and thermal fusion bonding. The fabricated glass-molded micromixer was durable at an internal pressure of ~24 MPa, and there was no swelling when used with toluene for an extended time.
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