Fluidic conduits for highly efficient purification of target species in EWOD-driven droplet microfluidics

Lab Chip. 2009 Aug 21;9(16):2402-5. doi: 10.1039/b823541d. Epub 2009 May 27.

Abstract

Due to the lack of continuous flows that would wash unwanted specifies and impurities off from a target location, droplet microfluidics commonly employs a long serial dilution process to purify target species. In this work, we achieve high-purity separation for the case of electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) based droplet microfluidics by introducing a "fluidic conduit" between a sample droplet and a buffer droplet. The long and slender fluidic path minimizes the diffusion and fluidic mixing between the two droplets (thus eliminating non-specific transport) but provides a conduit between them for actively transported particles (thus allowing the specific transport). The conduit is purely fluidic, stabilized chemically (e.g. using surfactants) and controlled by EWOD. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated by eliminating approximately 97% non-magnetic beads in just one purification step, while maintaining high collection efficiency (>99%) of magnetic beads.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Electric Impedance
  • Electrodes
  • Fluorescence
  • Magnetics
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / instrumentation
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / methods*
  • Poloxamer / chemistry
  • Surface-Active Agents / chemistry

Substances

  • Surface-Active Agents
  • Poloxamer