Jiangsu Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Equipment and Manufacturing, School of NARI Electric and Automation, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Mar 11;20(6):1559. doi: 10.3390/s20061559.
Microfluidic chips have been widely used in many areas such as biology, environmental monitoring, and micromixing. With the increasing popularity and complexity of microfluidic systems, rapid and convenient approaches for fabricating microfluidic chips are necessary. In this study, a method based on EHD (electrohydrodynamic)-assisted direct printing is proposed. Firstly, the principle of EHD-assisted direct printing was analyzed. The influence of the operating voltage and moving speed of the work table on the width of a paraffin wax model was studied. Then, two kinds of paraffin wax molds for micromixing with channel widths of 120 μm were prepared. A polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) micromixer was fabricated by replicating the paraffin wax mold, and the micromixing of blue and yellow dye was realized. The results show that EHD-assisted direct printing can be used to make complex microscale structures, which has the potential to greatly simplify the manufacturing process.
微流控芯片已广泛应用于生物学、环境监测和微混合等多个领域。随着微流控系统的普及和复杂化，快速便捷地制造微流控芯片的方法变得十分必要。本研究提出了一种基于电润湿（electrohydrodynamic）辅助直接打印的方法。首先，分析了电润湿辅助直接打印的原理。研究了工作平台的操作电压和移动速度对石蜡模型宽度的影响。然后，制备了两种具有 120μm 通道宽度的用于微混合的石蜡模具。通过复制石蜡模具，制造了一个聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）微混合器，并实现了蓝色和黄色染料的微混合。结果表明，电润湿辅助直接打印可用于制造复杂的微尺度结构，有望极大地简化制造工艺。
