Digital Manufacturing for Microfluidics

Naderi, Arman; Bhattacharjee, Nirveek; Folch, Albert

doi:10.1146/annurev-bioeng-092618-020341

Cited by 79 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 278 publications

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“…Recently, additive manufacturing has emerged as a powerful platform to fabricate 3D functional microfluidic systems from a variety of polymeric materials 34 . This outstanding technology enables investigators to build microstructures with complex shapes and geometries in a short time 35,36 .…”

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confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Inertial Microfluidic Devices

Bazaz

Rouhi

Raoufi

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

143

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Inertial microfluidics has been broadly investigated, resulting in the development of various applications, mainly for particle or cell separation. Lateral migrations of these particles within a microchannel strictly depend on the channel design and its cross-section. Nonetheless, the fabrication of these microchannels is a continuous challenging issue for the microfluidic community, where the most studied channel cross-sections are limited to only rectangular and more recently trapezoidal microchannels. As a result, a huge amount of potential remains intact for other geometries with cross-sections difficult to fabricate with standard microfabrication techniques. In this study, by leveraging on benefits of additive manufacturing, we have proposed a new method for the fabrication of inertial microfluidic devices. In our proposed workflow, parts are first printed via a high-resolution DLP/SLA 3D printer and then bonded to a transparent PMMA sheet using a double-coated pressure-sensitive adhesive tape. Using this method, we have fabricated and tested a plethora of existing inertial microfluidic devices, whether in a single or multiplexed manner, such as straight, spiral, serpentine, curvilinear, and contraction-expansion arrays. Our characterizations using both particles and cells revealed that the produced chips could withstand a pressure up to 150 psi with minimum interference of the tape to the total functionality of the device and viability of cells. As a showcase of the versatility of our method, we have proposed a new spiral microchannel with right-angled triangular cross-section which is technically impossible to fabricate using the standard lithography. We are of the opinion that the method proposed in this study will open the door for more complex geometries with the bespoke passive internal flow. Furthermore, the proposed fabrication workflow can be adopted at the production level, enabling large-scale manufacturing of inertial microfluidic devices.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Inertial Microfluidic Devices

Bazaz

Rouhi

Raoufi

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

143

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“…the electronics, the immunosensors, and the microfluidics are usually fabricated with three different techniques. The production of these multi-material chips will require new modular fabrication techniques – possibly based on digital manufacturing 215 – and novel microfluidic designs that allow for monitoring the physiology and pathophysiology of the tissue.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microfluidics for interrogating live intact tissues

et al. 2020

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The intricate microarchitecture of tissues – the “tissue microenvironment” – is a strong determinant of tissue function. Microfluidics offers an invaluable tool to precisely stimulate, manipulate, and analyze the tissue microenvironment in live tissues and engineer mass transport around and into small tissue volumes. Such control is critical in clinical studies, especially where tissue samples are scarce, in analytical sensors, where testing smaller amounts of analytes results in faster, more portable sensors, and in biological experiments, where accurate control of the cellular microenvironment is needed. Microfluidics also provides inexpensive multiplexing strategies to address the pressing need to test large quantities of drugs and reagents on a single biopsy specimen, increasing testing accuracy, relevance, and speed while reducing overall diagnostic cost. Here, we review the use of microfluidics to study the physiology and pathophysiology of intact live tissues at sub-millimeter scales. We categorize uses as either in vitro studies – where a piece of an organism must be excised and introduced into the microfluidic device – or in vivo studies – where whole organisms are small enough to be introduced into microchannels or where a microfluidic device is interfaced with a live tissue surface (e.g. the skin or inside an internal organ or tumor) that forms part of an animal larger than the device. These microfluidic systems promise to deliver functional measurements obtained directly on intact tissue – such as the response of tissue to drugs or the analysis of tissue secretions – that cannot be obtained otherwise.

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“…Additive manufacturing, or three-dimensional (3D) printing, techniques have recently emerged as promising complements or alternatives to augment the manufacturability of microfluidic devices (9). Comparative advantages of additive manufacturing techniques include the potential for autonomous and portable manufacturing, rapid prototyping, and the ability to incorporate freeform 3D structures (10). Several 3D printing approaches have been used for the fabrication of microfluidic devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D printed self-supporting elastomeric structures for multifunctional microfluidics

Wen

et al. 2020

Sci. Adv.

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Microfluidic devices fabricated via soft lithography have demonstrated compelling applications such as lab-on-a-chip diagnostics, DNA microarrays, and cell-based assays. These technologies could be further developed by directly integrating microfluidics with electronic sensors and curvilinear substrates as well as improved automation for higher throughput. Current additive manufacturing methods, such as stereolithography and multi-jet printing, tend to contaminate substrates with uncured resins or supporting materials during printing. Here, we present a printing methodology based on precisely extruding viscoelastic inks into self-supporting microchannels and chambers without requiring sacrificial materials. We demonstrate that, in the submillimeter regime, the yield strength of the as-extruded silicone ink is sufficient to prevent creep within a certain angular range. Printing toolpaths are specifically designed to realize leakage-free connections between channels and chambers, T-shaped intersections, and overlapping channels. The self-supporting microfluidic structures enable the automatable fabrication of multifunctional devices, including multimaterial mixers, microfluidic-integrated sensors, automation components, and 3D microfluidics.

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Digital Manufacturing for Microfluidics

Cited by 79 publications

References 278 publications

3D Printing of Inertial Microfluidic Devices

3D Printing of Inertial Microfluidic Devices

Microfluidics for interrogating live intact tissues

3D printed self-supporting elastomeric structures for multifunctional microfluidics

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