Performance impact of dynamic surface coatings on polymeric insulator-based dielectrophoretic particle separators
Performance impact of dynamic surface coatings on polymeric insulator-based dielectrophoretic particle separators
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DOI：
10.1007/s00216-007-1426-5
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发表时间：
2008-02-01
影响因子：
4.3
通讯作者：
Simmons, Blake A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Davalos, Rafael V.;McGraw, Gregory J.;Simmons, Blake A.
高效、稳健的颗粒分离和富集技术对于各种芯片实验室分析设备至关重要，包括病原体检测、样品制备、高通量颗粒分选和生物医学诊断。此前，我们在微流控玻璃装置中使用基于绝缘体的介电电泳（iDEP），演示了各种生物有机体、聚合物微珠和病毒的同步颗粒分离和浓缩。作为玻璃的替代品，我们评估了基于聚合物的微流体装置中生产的类似 iDEP 结构的性能。有许多加工和操作优势促使我们向聚合物过渡，例如许多固有化学成分可实现定制性能、机械稳健性、规模经济以及易于热成型和大规模制造。我们评估的聚合物芯片是通过市售环烯烃共聚物 Zeonor 1060R 的注塑工艺制造的。该出版物首次展示了由硅母模注射成型的聚合物装置中基于绝缘体的介电泳生物颗粒的分化。结果表明，聚合物器件实现了与玻璃器件相同的性能指标。我们还展示了通过使用动态表面涂层来增强这些微系统在系统功率需求方面的性能的有效方法。我们证明，市售的非离子嵌段共聚物表面活性剂 Pluronic F127 在非常低的浓度下与环烯烃共聚物具有很强的相互作用，通过将实现颗粒捕获所需的电场降低一个数量级，对性能产生积极影响。因此，这种动态表面涂层的存在降低了操作此类设备所需的功率，并最大限度地减少了焦耳热。本研究的结果表明，具有表面活性剂涂层的 iDEP 聚合物微流体装置为选择性颗粒富集和分选提供了一种经济实惠的工程策略。
Efficient and robust particle separation and enrichment techniques are critical for a diverse range of lab-on-a-chip analytical devices including pathogen detection, sample preparation, high-throughput particle sorting, and biomedical diagnostics. Previously, using insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) in microfluidic glass devices, we demonstrated simultaneous particle separation and concentration of various biological organisms, polymer microbeads, and viruses. As an alternative to glass, we evaluate the performance of similar iDEP structures produced in polymer-based microfluidic devices. There are numerous processing and operational advantages that motivate our transition to polymers such as the availability of numerous innate chemical compositions for tailoring performance, mechanical robustness, economy of scale, and ease of thermoforming and mass manufacturing. The polymer chips we have evaluated are fabricated through an injection molding process of the commercially available cyclic olefin copolymer Zeonor 1060R. This publication is the first to demonstrate insulator-based dielectrophoretic biological particle differentiation in a polymeric device injection molded from a silicon master. The results demonstrate that the polymer devices achieve the same performance metrics as glass devices. We also demonstrate an effective means of enhancing performance of these microsystems in terms of system power demand through the use of a dynamic surface coating. We demonstrate that the commercially available nonionic block copolymer surfactant, Pluronic F127, has a strong interaction with the cyclic olefin copolymer at very low concentrations, positively impacting performance by decreasing the electric field necessary to achieve particle trapping by an order of magnitude. The presence of this dynamic surface coating, therefore, lowers the power required to operate such devices and minimizes Joule heating. The results of this study demonstrate that iDEP polymeric microfluidic devices with surfactant coatings provide an affordable engineering strategy for selective particle enrichment and sorting.