Study Of Microfluidics Fabricated With Non-Woven Fiber Material

After more than two decades' development,microfluidic technology has been widely used in life sciences,medical,analytical chemistry,environmental science,food science,and many other research fields,and is gradually realizing large-scale industrial applications.During the development of microfluidic technology,the early microfluidic chips was fabricated on silicon/glass wafers,currently,polymer or paper-based microfluidic chips were also widely used.The corresponding fabrication technologies have emerged one after another and are gradually become more suitable for applications in life sciences,analytical chemistry,and other scientific research fields.Moreover,the future development trend of large-scale industrial application of microfluidic chips in different fields demands higher requirements on the material cost,manufacturing cost,reliability of the manufacturing process as well as the widely adaptable physical/chemical properties of the bulk material for microfluidic chips.The development of microfluidic technology relies on the continuous innovation of microfluidic chip materials and micromachining technologies.Among them,the innovation of low-cost materials and corresponding fabrication technologies are the foundation for the large-scale application of microfluidic chips.Based on the current research on low-cost microfluidic chip materials and processing,there is further demand on the material cost,performance and adaptability on future large-scale industrial application microfluidic devices,this paper proposes to use non-woven fiber materials as the bulk material for microfluidic chips.Established a comprehensive system for non-woven based microfluidic chip design and fabrication,and the following work has been conducted in this study:1.Literature study and analysis.With the study of the current research status on materials and fabrication methods of various microfluidic chips,the advantages and disadvantages of various microfluidic chips with different bulk materials and fabrication methods were summarized and analyzed.Given the fabrication and cost difficulties faced by the application of microfluidic chips in biomedical testing and other fields,from the perspectives of chip material cost,fluid driving method,chip preparation method,and ease of operation,the nonwoven fiber material as bulk material is proposed.This study is trying to establish a comprehensive system for non-woven based microfluidics;2.The choice of fabric materials for non-woven fabric based microfluidics.The research explored various physical and chemical performance requirements of non-woven fabric as the bulk material for microfluidic chips,and studied the key properties for various non-woven fiber materials,including tensile strength,maximum stretch,heat shrinkage,fiber density,water absorption performance,etc.,combined with performance requirements such as self-penetration flow of fluid in the chip and mechanical strength,PP(polypropylene)fiber and wood pulp polyester mixed composite fiber materials were chosen to be best suitable for microfluidic applications;3.The exploration of the fluid penetration process in the chip.The penetration process of the fluid in the non-woven fiber material was explored,and the governing equations of the fluid flow in the non-woven fiber material were established.Due to the complexity of the fluid flow process in the fiber fluid structure,a method using the Monte Carlo Extreme Machine Learning Method(MCELM)to quickly predict the fluid transport inside the porous structure of non-woven fabric material is proposed and established,which provided the fundamentals for the followed studies for non-woven based microfluidics;4.The fabrication and passive fluid control methods for the non-woven based microfluidic chip.According to the choice of non-woven fabric material and application requirements,through theoretical exploration and experimental research,the design and preparation strategy of microfluidic chips based on non-woven fiber materials are determined,and the design and preparation of microfluidic chips based on non-woven fiber materials are realized.Firstly,the fluid channel structure of the non-woven microfluidic chip was constructed using wax printing technology,the formation of hydrophobic barrier on the nonwoven fabric substrate is achieved.The channel size and fiber pore size changes were characterized in detail,and the controllable self-penetration of the fluid inside the non-woven fiber material was realized.After that,microfluidic devices based on PP fiber was used to conducted experimental research on mixing and quantitative detection of protein and glucose in artificial urine,demonstrated the application potential of microfluidic chips based on nonwoven materials in the fields of biomedicine;5.Active fluid control method based on wax micro-valve.To fully enhance the flexibility of the fluid control in non-woven based microfluidic,this study uses wood pulp and polyester hybrid composite fiber material to achieve the active control of the fluid flow in the porous medium with the non-woven based microfluidic chip.The approaches of the wax-based micro-valve to achieve opening and closing of the micro-valve in the porous fibrous material were discussed in detail.The programmable active control of the fluid in the microchannel is realized through a programmable control wax valve array in the microfluidic chip.With the requirement of self-driving,low cost,and fluid control ability of microfluidic chips in large-scale applications,this study proposes the application of non-woven fiber materials as the bulk material for the fabrication of microfluidic chips and establishes a comprehensive methodology on chip design,fabrication,fluid control and detection.The proposed method has the advantages of low material cost,efficient and rapid chip fabrication process,self-driven,and active control of fluid flow through micro-valve.In addition,it also has the potential of bulk microfluidic chip fabrication,which can meet the requirements of life science and medical study in different application scenarios.This research proposes and realized a comprehensive system for non-woven based microfluidic chip design,preparation,fluid control and detection,which can provide a platform for on-site rapid qualitative or semi-detection in the field of biomedicine,and also for the future large-scale application of microfluidic chips in the fields of life sciences and medicine.