CHALLENGES IN THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF MICROFLUIDICS IN BIOMEDICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY SENSORS

Orateur : Georgios KOKKINIS (Technical University of Vienna, Austria)

Eleven years after the iconic article from Whitesides about the origin and future of microfluidics, handling of liquids in micro channels is finally starting to hold up to its promise. With a market share expected to reach 10 billion dollars by 2024, transnational to medium and small-scale enterprises are turning towards microfluidics prototyping, fabrication, scaled up production or simply development of microfluidic devices performing various tasks. In most of the cases those devices seek to substitute complex and labor-intensive laboratory equipment with small, handheld instruments, operated by non-scientific personnel. Although there are numerous applications for microfluidics with proof of concepts successfully demonstrated in the laboratory, the commercialization of such concepts can face many obstacles and not straight forward solutions. The focus will be on numerous issues experienced during the development of a capillary electrophoresis microfluidic platform for soil sample analysis. The challenges faced during the commercialization of the device can be summed up to the following categories : chip and electrode fabrication, fluidic interface and connections, pumping mechanism, chip exchange mechanics electrical connections and electronics, manufacturability, usability and reproducibility. The chip production had to go through different phases, starting with the laboratory version of the chip. As many laboratory prototypes do it was implemented using glass and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). PDMS though being extensively used in early stage studies, poses serious obstacles in scaled up processes. In short, its production cannot be easily automatized. For an intermediate stage (prior to mass manufactured) chip design we utilized rapid prototyping techniques such as laser milling, for grafting the channel on a thin PET foil. Inkjet printing was used for producing the electrodes. Current development in under way of scaling up the chip production, experimenting with the roll-to-roll imprint method, hot embossing and injection molding. One major problem raised in microfluidics is the bubble formation, which for a capillary electrophoresis device they disarray the measurements due to the disruption of the separation voltage. Several bubble removal strategies were tested. A combination of those strategies along with a specially designed chip - buffer reservoir fluidic interface, rendered our device bubble free. Lastly, considerable efforts were made for addressing other pressing issues towards designing a commercial handheld device. Since the targeted end users are middle size farm growers the functionality and usability of the device should be of high standards. That implies that the liquid handling, chip exchange mechanism etc should be as automated and simple as possible.

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