[Regular Paper] Low Cost Micro-Droplet Formation Chip with a Hand-Operated Suction Syringe

Abstract

Removing syringe pump from microfluidics droplet formation devices has many advantages such as using a small amount of biomedical sample directly from pipette to the inlet port of the channel, furthermore the system becomes smaller in size and lower in cost by abolishing the cost of the syringe pump. In this study, a quite simple and low-cost, power-free pumping method to form micro-droplets in a PMMA double T-Junction microfluidic channel is presented. The device was fabricated by direct write laser technique using PMMA substrate. By taking benefits of the suction pressure that comes from a single hand-operated suction syringe, the device generates droplet's volume about 2 Nano-liter consequently no complicated system is required. The low cost of the PMMA sheet and the fabrication process causes that one chip is about 30 cent. This makes it disposable as a single -use which is recommended in many medical analyses.