title: Design and fabrication of chemically robust three-dimensional microfluidic valves.
abstract: A current problem in microfluidics is that poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), used to fabricate many microfluidic devices, is not compatible with most organic solvents. Fluorinated compounds are more chemically robust than PDMS but, historically, it has been nearly impossible to construct valves out of them by multilayer soft lithography (MSL) due to the difficulty of bonding layers made of "non-stick" fluoropolymers necessary to create traditional microfluidic valves. With our new three-dimensional (3D) valve design we can fabricate microfluidic devices from fluorinated compounds in a single monolithic layer that is resistant to most organic solvents with minimal swelling. This paper describes the design and development of 3D microfluidic valves by molding of a perfluoropolyether, termed Sifel, onto printed wax molds. The fabrication of Sifel-based microfluidic devices using this technique has great potential in chemical synthesis and analysis.
authors: Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
authors: George
authors: G
authors: Maltezos
authors: Erika
authors: E
authors: Garcia
authors: Grady
authors: G
authors: Hanrahan
authors: Frank A
authors: FA
authors: Gomez
authors: Saurabh
authors: S
authors: Vyawahare
authors: Saurabh
authors: S
authors: Vyawhare
authors: R Michael
authors: RM
authors: van Dam
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Chen
authors: Axel
authors: A
authors: Scherer
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D004987:Ethers / Q000737:chemistry*; D005466:Fluorocarbons / Q000737:chemistry*; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D004987:Ethers; D005466:Fluorocarbons; C078113:perfluoropolyether