Bashirzadeh Yashar, Maruthamuthu Venkat, Qian Shizhi
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA.
Micromachines (Basel). 2016 Dec 15;7(12):235. doi: 10.3390/mi7120235.
Fabrication of microchannels and associated electrodes to generate electrokinetic phenomena often involves costly materials and considerable effort. In this study, we used graphite pencil-leads as low cost, disposable 3D electrodes to investigate various electrokinetic phenomena in straight cylindrical microchannels, which were themselves fabricated by using a graphite rod as the microchannel mold. Individual pencil-leads were employed as the micro-electrodes arranged along the side walls of the microchannel. Efficient electrokinetic phenomena provided by the 3D electrodes, including alternating current electroosmosis (ACEO), induced-charge electroosmosis (ICEO), and dielectrophoresis (DEP), were demonstrated by the introduced pencil-lead based microfluidic devices. The electrokinetic phenomena were characterized by micro-particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) measurements and microscopy imaging. Highly efficient electrokinetic phenomena using 3D pencil-lead electrodes showed the affordability and ease of this technique to fabricate microfluidic devices embedded with electrodes for electrokinetic fluid and particle manipulations.
制造用于产生电动现象的微通道及相关电极通常需要使用昂贵的材料且耗费大量精力。在本研究中，我们使用石墨铅笔芯作为低成本、一次性的三维电极，来研究直圆柱形微通道中的各种电动现象，这些微通道本身是用石墨棒作为微通道模具制造的。单独的铅笔芯被用作沿微通道侧壁排列的微电极。通过引入基于铅笔芯的微流控装置，展示了三维电极提供的高效电动现象，包括交流电渗（ACEO）、感应电荷电渗（ICEO）和介电泳（DEP）。通过微粒子图像测速（micro-PIV）测量和显微镜成像对电动现象进行了表征。使用三维铅笔芯电极的高效电动现象表明了该技术在制造用于电动流体和粒子操纵的嵌入式电极微流控装置方面的经济性和简便性。
