A new approach towards an optimum design and manufacture of microfluidic devices based on ex situ fabricated hydrogel based thin films' integration

We present a compression based packaging technique which can be applied to reversibly seal hydrogel based materials' thin films and micro-fabricated thermoplastic components for hybrid materials stacking microfluidic cells-based chips design. A multilayer microdevice has been realized for liquid leakage tests at the thermoplastic/hydrogel interface nearby the fluidic circuits machined on the plastic layer; biocompatible Poly-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (PHEMA) hydrogel membranes with different thickness (Ranging from 100 to 200 μm) and micro-milled Polymethylmethacrylate components were chosen to realize the chip. By promoting continuous perfusion of the system pumping aqueous coloured dye solutions in the microchannels, the sealing between the two materials resulted guaranteed for tested flow rate values, ranging from 100nL/min to 10mL/min. Furthermore, to take the hydrogel into operation, a representative case study of a micro-bioreactor based on joint hybrid materials and employing PHEMA thin film as a cell culture substrate has been analyzed and modelled by mean of numerical simulation.