A rejuvenation method for poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide)-coated glass microfluidic chips.
As microfluidic chips come to integrate the higher levels of functionality required for the implementation of advanced bioanalytical protocols, a crucial factor is that of cost. Although glass chips provide advantages in multilayer integrations, their cost is far higher than that of polymer chips. However, a simple and effective rejuvenation protocol for glass microchips may enable higher levels of integration and functionality on glass microchips. Here we present a method to rejuvenate glass microchips that had been used for capillary electrophoresis to the extent that their performance was degraded. This degradation was due to one of the two mechanisms: (i) a deterioration of the polymer coating on the inner surface of the microchannel or (ii) an aging of the glass substrate. Using the method presented here, we have rejuvenated more than 50 such "aged" microchips. The performance of these microchips was fully restored after the rejuvenation and lasted for hundreds of DNA separation runs. Our experiments indicate that the loss of resolution in microchip separations was not associated with glass aging, but was due to the degradation of the polymer coating on the inner surface of microchannels. This suggests that it is possible to extend the microchip lifetime "forever" using the rejuvenation protocol and that the exploration of higher levels of integration and functionality on glass microchips (or of hybrid structures involving materials capable of withstanding the reagents and elevated temperatures used) is feasible.
Ma
Rubin
R
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Crabtree
H John
HJ
Backhouse
Christopher J
CJ
D000178:Acrylamides / Q000737:chemistry*; D046209:Electrophoresis, Microchip / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005898:Glass / Q000737:chemistry*; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques
D000178:Acrylamides; C429790:poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide)