Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, 229 Towne Building, 220 S. 33rd St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6315, USA.
Lab Chip. 2011 May 7;11(9):1688-93. doi: 10.1039/c1lc20089e. Epub 2011 Mar 28.
In many lab-on-chip applications, it is necessary to remove bubbles from the flow stream. Existing bubble removal strategies have various drawbacks such as low degassing efficiency, long degassing time, large dead volumes, sensitivity to surfactants, and the need for an external vacuum or pressure source. We report on a novel, simple, robust, passive, nozzle-type, membrane-based debubbler that can be readily incorporated into microfluidic devices for rapid degassing. The debubbler is particularly suitable to operate with microfluidic systems made with plastic. The debubbler consists of a hydrophobic, porous membrane that resembles a normally closed valve, which is forced open by the working fluid's pressure. To illustrate the operation of the debubbler, we describe its use in the context of a chip containing a bead array for immunoassays. Our debubbler was able to completely filter gas bubbles out of a segmented flow at rates up to 60 µl s(-1) mm(-2) of membrane area.
在许多微流控芯片应用中，需要从流动相中去除气泡。现有的除泡策略存在各种缺点，例如脱气效率低、脱气时间长、死体积大、对表面活性剂敏感以及需要外部真空或压力源。我们报告了一种新颖、简单、鲁棒、被动、喷嘴型、基于膜的除泡器，可轻松集成到微流控设备中，实现快速脱气。该除泡器特别适合与塑料制成的微流控系统一起使用。除泡器由疏水、多孔膜组成，类似于常闭阀，由工作流体的压力迫使其打开。为了说明除泡器的工作原理，我们描述了它在包含用于免疫分析的珠阵列的芯片中的使用。我们的除泡器能够以高达 60 µl s(-1) mm(-2)的膜面积速率，完全从分段流中过滤出气体气泡。
