Large Volume Self-powered Disposable Microfluidics by the Integration of Modular Polymer Micropumps with Plastic Microfluidic Cartridges

Abstract

Microfluidic microsystems are often designed to analyse samples of small volume of fluid, however, some applications require the analysis of larger volumes. The ideal miniaturized microfluidic analytical device should be autonomous and capable of integrating all the required functions within a single fluidic network. While a number of self-powered microfluidic networks designs are available, the autonomous manipulation of large sample volumes in microsystems is still a challenge. We have developed a universal self-powered microfluidic architecture by combining polymeric micropumps and plastic microfluidic cartridges, which may be adapted to a large range of volume of fluid. Our polymeric micropumps were able to trigger flow rates from 0.25 to 20 L·min-1 during more than 40 minutes, moving over 800 microliters of fluid. A number of fluidic operations were demonstrated, including: mixing, aliquoting, waste storage and auto-draining of the microfluidic channels. Finally, a self-powered cartridge for the separation of plasma from whole blood was successfully validated, demonstrating that this constitutes a universal scheme to process a wide range of fluid volumes, an unprecedented fact in self-powered microfluidics.