Abstract
In order to effectively pump liquid in a fluidic chip, the PDMS or SU8 channels were frequently modified by surface treatments to obtain the hydrophilic surface but encountered the problem of the hydrophobic recovery. In this article, long-term highly hydrophilic fluidic chips were demonstrated using rapid fabrication of low-power CO2 laser ablation and low-temperature glass bonding with an interlayer of liquid crystal polymer (LCP). The intrinsic hydrophilic materials of glass and LCP were beneficial for self-driven flow in the long-term fluidic chip by surface-tension force with no extra fluidic pumps. The higher viscosity fluid could increase the difficulty of self-driven capability. The stability of contact angle and flow test of the chip after 2 months is similar to that at beginning. The high-viscosity human whole blood was successfully driven at an average moving velocity of about 1.89 mm/s for the beginning and at 2.04 mm/s after 2 months. Our fluidic chip simplifies the traditional complex fabrication procedure of glass chips and conquers the problem of traditional hydrophobic recovery.
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Acknowledgments
This work is partial sponsored by National Science Council (NSC) under contract No 95-2221-E-006-047-MY3 and 96-2628-E-006-080-MY3. We also pay our sincere thanks to Center for Micro/Nano Science and Technology at National Cheng Kung University for the support of equipments.
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Chung, C.K., Chen, Y.S. & Shih, T.R. Fabrication and flow test of long-term hydrophilic fluidic chip without using any surface modification treatment. Microfluid Nanofluid 6, 853–857 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-008-0363-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-008-0363-8