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Micromachines
Special Issues
Modular Microfluidics: Fundamental Studies and Applications
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Modular Microfluidics: Fundamental Studies and Applications

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "C：Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 December 2020) | Viewed by 8603

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Yi-Chin Toh

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, 60 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove, QLD 4059, Australia
Interests: modular microfluidics; micro-physiological systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microfluidics can manipulate fluids spatio-temporally, and therefore offer the promise of realizing lab-on-a-chip systems, which can miniaturize and automate various biological and chemical processes. However, this vision has not yet been fully realized, partly due to the long development time of complex microfluidic systems. Since research groups often implement microfluidic devices as a standalone unibody and there are currently no industry standards, it is often challenging to add functionality to an existing microfluidic device without altering its current design and operation. Modularization offers an attractive solution to this problem, since individual functional units can be independently developed and optimized before being assembled into a system to perform more complex processes. This will require fundamental research into the design and fabrication of new microfluidic world-to-chip interconnects as well as fluidic breadboards, which can enable flexible and reversible interfacing of different microfluidic components. A key challenge in realizing a universal modular microfluidic interconnect is that it should be compatible with different microfluidic fabrication modalities, including PDMS replica molding and 3D printing. Design rubrics for the assembly of different functional modules to perform biological or chemical synthesis, analyses, detection, and cell culture will guide the development of a new generation of micro-total-analytical systems and body-on-chips. This Special Issue welcomes original research and review articles covering recent advancements in the fundamentals and applications of modular microfluidics.

Prof. Dr. Yi-Chin Toh
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Modular microfluidics
  • Fluidic breadboard
  • Interconnects

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3858 KiB  
Article
Fundamental Studies of Rapidly Fabricated On-Chip Passive Micromixer for Modular Microfluidics
by Wenpeng Guo, Li Tang, Biqiang Zhou and Yingsing Fung
Micromachines 2021, 12(2), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12020153 - 4 Feb 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2775
Abstract
Micromixers play an important role in many modular microfluidics. Complex on-chip mixing units and smooth channel surfaces ablated by lasers on polymers are well-known problems for microfluidic chip fabricating techniques. However, little is known about the ablation of rugged surfaces on polymer chips [...] Read more.
Micromixers play an important role in many modular microfluidics. Complex on-chip mixing units and smooth channel surfaces ablated by lasers on polymers are well-known problems for microfluidic chip fabricating techniques. However, little is known about the ablation of rugged surfaces on polymer chips for mixing uses. This paper provides the first report of an on-chip compact micromixer simply, easily and quickly fabricated using laser-ablated irregular microspheric surfaces on a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) microfluidic chip for continuous mixing uses in modular microfluidics. The straight line channel geometry is designed for sequential mixing of nanoliter fluids in about 1 s. The results verify that up to about 90% of fluids can be mixed in a channel only 500 µm long, 200 µm wide and 150 µm deep using the developed micromixer fabricating method under optimized conditions. The computational flow dynamics simulation and experimental result agree well with each other. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modular Microfluidics: Fundamental Studies and Applications)
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17 pages, 10914 KiB  
Article
A 3D-Printed Modular Microreservoir for Drug Delivery
by Farzad Forouzandeh, Nuzhet N. Ahamed, Meng-Chun Hsu, Joseph P. Walton, Robert D. Frisina and David A. Borkholder
Micromachines 2020, 11(7), 648; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11070648 - 30 Jun 2020
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5429
Abstract
Reservoir-based drug delivery microsystems have enabled novel and effective drug delivery concepts in recent decades. These systems typically comprise integrated storing and pumping components. Here we present a stand-alone, modular, thin, scalable, and refillable microreservoir platform as a storing component of these microsystems [...] Read more.
Reservoir-based drug delivery microsystems have enabled novel and effective drug delivery concepts in recent decades. These systems typically comprise integrated storing and pumping components. Here we present a stand-alone, modular, thin, scalable, and refillable microreservoir platform as a storing component of these microsystems for implantable and transdermal drug delivery. Three microreservoir capacities (1, 10, and 100 µL) were fabricated with 3 mm overall thickness using stereolithography 3D-printing technology, enabling the fabrication of the device structure comprising a storing area and a refill port. A thin, preformed dome-shaped storing membrane was created by the deposition of parylene-C over a polyethylene glycol sacrificial layer, creating a force-free membrane that causes zero forward flow and insignificant backward flow (2% of total volume) due to membrane force. A septum pre-compression concept was introduced that enabled the realization of a 1-mm-thick septa capable of ~65000 leak-free refill punctures under 100 kPa backpressure. The force-free storing membrane enables using normally-open micropumps for drug delivery, and potentially improves the efficiency and precision of normally-closed micropumps. The ultra-thin septum reduces the thickness of refillable drug delivery devices, and is capable of thousands of leak-free refills. This modular and scalable device can be used for drug delivery in different laboratory animals and humans, as a sampling device, and for lab-on-a-chip and point-of-care diagnostics applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modular Microfluidics: Fundamental Studies and Applications)
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