Hydrophilic polycarbonate chips for generation of oil-in-water (O/W) and water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) emulsions

Abstract

Modification of the surfaces of polycarbonate (PC) with the use of a solution of tin (II) chloride renders them hydrophilic. The surface draping is stable against exposure to water and to alcohols. Exposure to alkanes reduces but does not diminish the effect. The method is compatible-in using the same solvent and temperature-with the hydrophobic modification of PC Jankowski et al. ( Lab Chip 11:748-752, 2011). The combination of these methods makes it possible to generate single and multiple monodisperse emulsions with the use of flow-focusing junctions in systems made in PCmaterial that is suitable for fabrication of multilayer, high throughput microfluidic devices.

Rapid, Simple, and Inexpensive Spatial Patterning of Wettability in Microfluidic Devices for Double Emulsion Generation

“…Please note that our approach can generate highly uniform DEs, with a coefficient of variation (C.V.) < 1.4% (see Figure S4). This value is comparable to or smaller than those for the DEs generated by other methods, for example, multimodule co-axial flow-focusing capillaries (C.V. = 2.5–3.0% ,, ), multimodule connected microfluidic chips (C.V. = 2.5–3.0%), , layer-by-layer assembly (C.V. = 5.2–7.3%), , chemical functionalization by flow confinement (C.V. = 1.3–4.2%), ,,− plasma oxidation (C.V. = 2.1–2.5%), ,, and localized UV treatment of glass (C.V. < 8.0%) . We noted that the stability of generated DEs can be further improved by different approaches, such as using proper surfactants , and maintaining the balance of the osmotic pressure between the inner phase and the outer phase .…”

Etching and Post‐Treatment Surface Stability of Track‐Etched Polycarbonate Membranes by Plasma Processing Using Various Related Oxidizing Plasma Systems

“…Polycarbonate (PC) is an important thermoplastic material that finds many uses, including in optical, biomedical, patterned microarray assay, and microfluidic devices . PC is generally rigid, optically clear, and has good chemical and thermal stability.…”

Utilisation of micro- and nanoscaled materials in microfluidic analytical devices

“…Microchannel devices made of thermoplastic polymers are less expensive than those made of glass, less adsorptive towards bio-molecules than polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and suitable to be mass-produced by hot embossing or injection moulding technologies [26]. Thermoplastic polymers such as polycarbonate (PC) [27,28], poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [29][30][31], and polystyrene (PS) [32] are the most commonly used materials. Low glass transition (LGT) polymers, such as PC and PMMA are not suitable for modification by the photolithography process, since high temperatures lead to deformation of the polymer material.…”