2017/9/16

Microfluidics
• Microfluidics refers to the behavior and control of liquids
constrained to volumes near the μL range.
Lecture 1: • Behavior of liquids in the micro domain differs greatly from
macroscopic fluids.
Introduction to Microfluidics – Surface effects
– Laminar flow
– Small volume (length scale) for fast transport
•What is microfluidics? • Microfluidics is an multidisciplinary field with a wide variety
• Big picture of microfluidics of applications.
•How is microfluidics different from large scale flow? • Some methods for fabricating microelectronics can be used
•Introduction of some applications of microfluidics to construct microfluidic devices.

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Microfluidics to Construct Lab on a Chip Microfluidics to Construct Lab on a Chip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8K-
zBimFPo&list=PL64F5A9EA137CCEEE

Reason to miniaturize the system: The desire to use less sample is important and it is what
Fast, Portable, Robust, Easy to use, Flexible, got people excited. But really what’s different is you can
Inexpensive, Modular
now do things you previously couldn’t do.
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Microfluidics to Construct Lab on a Chip Phenomena of Liquids in the Micro Scale

• Providing all of the possible required analyses for a given problem
• No user interaction required except for initialization
Differs Greatly from Macroscopic Fluids
• Portable
Sample
Reaction Detection
Three major differences:
preparation

•Surface effects

Lab-on-a-Chip (“Bio-analyzer”)
•Laminar flow
from Agilent Technologies

•Small volume (length scale) for faster

momentum, heat, & mass transport, and for
saving reagents
Chem Lab-on-a-Chip from Sandia 5 6

Laminar Flow Surface effects

•Small length scale results in small Re# • Molecules in any medium experience an attractive force with
•Laminar flow: Fluids can follow their streamlines other molecules.
•Lateral mixing can be accurately predicted by diffusion • Imbalance of this attractive force at an interface leads to
surface tension
A B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvdz5gHrOU • In microfluidic devices,
Y&list=PL64F5A9EA137CCEEE&feature=mh_lolz
Surface/volume
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgHuWrcx- Interface forces /body forces
p8&feature=BFa&list=PL64F5A9EA137CCEEE&lf=m
h_lolz
Channel
height 50
μm
100 μm

C
More surface/volume
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Faster Transport Various Microfluidic Applications

• Transport controlled by diffusion: flow regime is laminar
Scaling laws: diffusion time is the time that a molecule
needs to travel through a length L by diffusive processes

tD ~ L 2 when L ↓ from cm to 100 μm,

timescale ↓ from hours to sec

• Reduced consumption of reagents and analytes

• Reduced time of analysis
• High throughput (parallel + faster analysis)
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9 Yole Développment Report Oct. 2004: “Emerging markets for Microfluidics Applications”

Application in Chemical Assays Application in Biological Assays

-environmental heavy metal Analysis -immunoassays

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Application in Fuel Cells Summary of Major Motivations for

A key feature of fuel cells—
Using Microfluidics
something isolating the fuel from • Combination of chemical reactions, sample
the oxidizer but allowing the
injection, and separation of reaction in one system
penetration of ions .
• Speed up analysis times
Conventional method: porous • Reduce fluid handling
membrane to separate the fuel • Improve resolutions
and oxidizer • Reduce sample sizes
• Allow parallel processing
New method: laminar flow to keep
fuel and oxidizer follow their • Reduce costs
streamlines, while diffusion can load • Integrated signal detection and processing
still happen between them. • Smaller systems (portable)
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Content Included in this Class How Microfluidics is Related to Chemical Engineering

Introduction of various basic components of microfluidics Microfluidics are involved in sophisticated fluid-handling capabilities.
• Separation • Mixing • Reaction These systems require the same types of components as larger fluid-
• Transport control: pumps, valves, flow rate control handling systems: pumps, valves, mixers, filters, separators, and etc.
• Detection • Power • Sample collection
for using as tools It can be an example showing how knowledge from our core courses
could be integrated together.
Introduction of the phenomena at micro scale which are
different from the large-scale flows that are familiar from
everyday life
 for developing novel applications http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P
j9pH24NF0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU9S2zSsb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1fEHLarR
28&feature=autoplay&list=PL64F5A9EA137CCE Zk&feature=autoplay&list=PL64F5A9EA137CCE
EE&lf=mh_lolz&playnext=1 EE&lf=mh_lolz&playnext=2

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