title: Low cost production of disposable microfluidics by blister packaging technology.
abstract: Large scale production of disposable microfluidics mostly is accomplished by injection moulding techniques today. A cost effective alternative to injection moulding might be vacuum thermoforming of polymer films. Vacuum thermoforming is the basis for medical and pharmaceutical packaging such as pharmaceutical blister packs. It allows for cheap and reliable forming of polymer films and thus seems suitable for the fabrication of disposables. Our goal is to investigate and demonstrate the potential of vacuum thermoforming for the fabrication of microtechnology components. For this purpose we have developed a simple low cost process allowing for the fabrication of disposable microfluidics by vacuum thermoforming.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Process Technology, Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK), University of Freiburg, Georges-Koehler-Allee 103, 79110 Freiburg, Germany. adisch@imtek.de
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Disch
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mueller
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Reinecke
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004209:Disposable Equipment; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005858:Germany; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D019064:Product Packaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*