title: A simple method for preparation of macroporous polydimethylsiloxane membrane for microfluidic chip-based isoelectric focusing applications.
abstract: A new, simple method was reported to prepare PDMS membranes with micrometer size pores for microfluidic chip applications. The pores were formed by adding polystyrene and toluene into PDMS prepolymer solution prior to spin-coating and curing. The resulting PDMS membrane has a thickness of around 10 microm and macropores with a diameter ranging from 1 to 2 microm measured using scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging. This PDMS membrane was validated by integrating it with PDMS microfluidic chips for protein separation using isoelectric focusing mechanism coupled with whole channel imaging detection (IEF-WCID). It has been shown that five standard pI markers and a mixture of two proteins, myoglobin and beta-lactoglobulin, can be separated using these chips. The results indicated that this macroporous PDMS membrane can replace the dialysis membrane in PDMS chips for the IEF-WCID technique. The preparation method of macroporous PDMS membrane may be potentially applied in other fields of microfluidic chips.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1 Canada.
authors.forename: Junjie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ou
authors.forename: Carolyn L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Janusz
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pawliszyn
mesh_terms: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes / Q000737:chemistry*; D004560:Electricity; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007525:Isoelectric Focusing / Q000379:methods; D008566:Membranes / Q000737:chemistry; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods; D016062:Porosity; D012709:Serum Albumin / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; D012709:Serum Albumin; C013830:baysilon