Fully-programmable, low-cost, “do-it-yourself” pressure source for general purpose use in the microfluidic laboratory

Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Microfluidics is still a fast growing field and an interesting market, which increasingly demands sophisticated equipment and specific engineering solutions. Aside from the widely discussed chip technology, the external equipment and machinery to operate such a microfluidic chip system comes into focus. A number of companies offer solutions to pursue the various requests made by the microfluidic community. Commercially available systems for pumping fluids are versatile but also highly expensive. Here, we present a fully-programmable pressure source, which is low-cost and can be utilized for pressure-controlled fluid driving, destructive bonding tests, and other pressure-relevant experiments. We evaluated our setup and compared the performance to a commercially available system. Furthermore, we demonstrated the use of the system in the field of droplet microfluidics as a possible application. Our development aims to lower the entrance threshold for microfluidic technology and make it more accessible to a broader audience.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number13
JournalInventions
Volume1
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2016
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-8588-9755/work/224211480

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Do-it-yourself, Laboratory equipment, Microfluidics, Precision instruments, Pressure source, Pressure-driven flow