Colloquium

Topic 4
Microfluidics : An Introduction

Raghav Mundhra
BME – IV – A2
001511201050
Colloquium Topic 4
Abstract
In this presentation, a short introduction to the subject of microfluidics is given. This
presentation shall cover the fundamentals of microfluidics, the growth of the subject over the
past few decades as well as its present importance and applications along with the future scope
of research.

History and developments

Microfluidics is a growing technology with an ever increasing demand and growth rate.

With the worldwide effort in microfluidics research, some observations need to be made about
the short history of microfluidics research as well as about its likely future trends.

With silicon micromachining as the enabling technology, researchers have been developing
silicon microfluidic devices. The first approach for making miniaturized devices was shrinking
down conventional principles. This approach is representative of the research conducted in the
1980s through the mid-1990s. In this phase of microfluidics development, a number of silicon
microvalves, micropumps, and microflow sensors were developed and investigated.

Since the mid-1990s, development has been shifted to the exploration of new actuating
schemes for microfluidics. Because of the power and size constraints, research efforts have
concentrated on actuators with no moving parts and nonmechanical pumping principles.
Electrokinetic pumping, surface tension-driven flows, electromagnetic forces, and acoustic

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streaming are effects that usually have negligible effect at macroscopic length scales. However,
at the microscale they offer particular advantages over mechanical principles. New effects,
which mimic the way cells and molecules function, will be the next developmental stage of
microfluidics. With this move, microfluidics will enter the era of nanotechnology.

Concurrent with the exploration of new effects, microfluidics today is looking for further
application fields beyond conventional fields, such as flow control, chemical analysis,
biomedical diagnostics, and drug discovery. New applications utilizing microfluidics for
distributed energy supply, distributed thermal management, and chemical production are
promising.

Knowing this short history and the demand and applications of microfluidics, let’s get into the
conceptual understanding of this subject.

FLUIDICS
It is the study and technique of using small interacting flows and fluid jets for functions usually
performed by electronic devices. It is also known as fluidic logic.

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The physical basis of fluidics is pneumatics and hydraulics, based on the theoretical foundation
of fluid dynamics. The term fluidics is normally used when devices have no moving parts, so
ordinary hydraulic components such as hydraulic cylinders and spool valves are not considered
or referred to as fluidic devices.

Logic Elements
Logic gates can be built that use water instead of electricity to power the gating function.

 LOGICAL "AND" GATE can be built using fluid-control components. Jets are so
arranged that jet A alone will go to one output (left), jet B will go to a different output
(middle) and two jets combined will go to a third output (right) that signifies A "and"
B.

 LOGICAL "OR" GATE contains two control jets, A and B, on one side of the main power
stream. With neither jet on, the stream will go to one output (left). Either jet A or jet
B, on being activated, will cause the stream to go to other output (middle and right).

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Microfluidics
It is the science and engineering of systems in which fluid behavior differs from conventional
flow theory primarily due to the small length scale of the system.

Microfluidics deals with the behaviour, precise control and manipulation of fluids that are
geometrically constrained to a small, typically sub-millimeter, scale at which capillary
penetration governs mass transport.

The length scale over which microfluidic devices operate is illustrated in the following diagram:

Why Microfluidics?
What was the need for the development of this branch of science and engineering?

What advantages does it offer over the conventional sciences?

We look at the answer to these questions through various perspectives:

 Scientific perspective
Flow physics in microfluidic devices is governed by a transitional regime between the
continuum and molecular-dominated regimes. The behaviour of fluids at the microscale
can differ from "macrofluidic" behaviour in that factors such as surface tension, energy
dissipation, and fluidic resistance start to dominate the system. Since the Reynolds
number of the flow will be very low in such flows, co-flowing fluids do not necessarily
mix in the traditional sense, as flow becomes laminar rather than turbulent; molecular
transport between them must often be through diffusion. Microfluidics studies how

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 these behaviours change, and how they can be worked around, or exploited for new
uses.

 Commercial Perspective
Microfluidic devices are tools that enable novel applications unrealizable with
conventional equipment. Microfluidics can have a revolutionizing impact on chemical
analysis and synthesis, similar to the impact of integrated circuits on computers and
electronics. While modern computers only have about 20 parallel processes, a
microfluidic assay can have several hundred to several hundred thousand parallel
processes. This high performance is extremely important for DNA-based diagnostics in
pharmaceutical and health care applications.

The following figure shows a comparison between the sale of various devices and it can
be seen that due to the gaining popularity and wide range of applications the
microfluidics industry has seen an exponential rise in the sale of its products and is now
becoming indispensible and most demanded.

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Microfluidic Chip
A microfluidic chip is a set of micro-channels etched or molded into a material (glass, silicon or
polymer such as PDMS, for PolyDimethylSiloxane). The micro-channels forming the microfluidic
chip are connected together in order to achieve the desired features (mix, pump, sort, or

control the biochemical environment).

This network of micro-channels trapped into the microfluidic chip is connected to the outside
by inputs and outputs pierced through the chip, as an interface between the macro- and micro-
world.

It is through these holes that the liquids (or gases) are injected and removed from the
microfluidic chip (through tubing, syringe adapters or even simple holes in the chip) with
external active systems (pressure controller, push-syringe or peristaltic pump) or passive ways
(e.g. hydrostatic pressure).

Applications
Microfluidics has a wide range of multidisciplinary applications. It finds applications in biology,
chemistry, medicince, physics, mechanical, fluid power, etc. Some of its applications are:

 Open microfluidics In open microfluidics, at least one boundary of the system is

removed, exposing the fluid to air or another interface (i.e. liquid). Advantages of open
microfluidics include accessibility to the flowing liquid for intervention, larger liquid-gas
surface area, and minimized bubble formation. Another advantage of open microfluidics
is the ability to integrate open systems with surface-tension driven fluid flow, which
eliminates the need for external pumping methods such as peristaltic or syringe
pumps. Open microfluidic devices are also easy and inexpensive to fabricate by milling,
thermoforming, and hot embossing. In addition, open microfluidics eliminates the need
to glue or bond a cover for devices which could be detrimental for capillary flows.

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 Examples of open microfluidics include open-channel microfluidics, rail-based
microfluidics, paper-based, and thread-based microfluidics. Disadvantages to open
systems include susceptibility to evaporation, contamination, and limited flow rate.

 Continuous flow microfluidics These technologies are based on the manipulation

of continuous liquid flow through microfabricated channels. Actuation of liquid flow is
implemented either by external pressure sources, external mechanical pumps,
integrated mechanical micropumps, or by combinations of capillary forces
and electrokinetic mechanisms. Continuous-flow microfluidic operation is the
mainstream approach because it is easy to implement and less sensitive to protein
fouling problems. Continuous-flow devices are adequate for many well-defined and
simple biochemical applications, and for certain tasks such as chemical separation, but
they are less suitable for tasks requiring a high degree of flexibility or fluid
manipulations.

 Droplet based microfluidics Droplet-based microfluidics is a subcategory of

microfluidics in contrast with continuous microfluidics; droplet-based microfluidics
manipulates discrete volumes of fluids in immiscible phases with low Reynolds number
and laminar flow regimes. Interest in droplet-based microfluidics systems has been
growing substantially in past decades. Microdroplets allow for handling miniature
volumes (μl to fl) of fluids conveniently, provide better mixing, encapsulation, sorting,
and sensing, and suit high throughput experiment

 Digital microfluidics Alternatives to the above closed-channel continuous-flow

systems include novel open structures, where discrete, independently controllable
droplets are manipulated on a substrate using electrowetting. Following the analogy of
digital microelectronics, this approach is referred to as digital microfluidics. By using
discrete unit-volume droplets, a microfluidic function can be reduced to a set of
repeated basic operations, i.e., moving one unit of fluid over one unit of distance. This
"digitisation" method facilitates the use of a hierarchical and cell-based approach for
microfluidic biochip design. Therefore, digital microfluidics offers a flexible and scalable
system architecture as well as high fault-tolerance capability. Moreover, because each
droplet can be controlled independently, these systems also have dynamic
reconfigurability, whereby groups of unit cells in a microfluidic array can be
reconfigured to change their functionality during the concurrent execution of a set of
bioassays

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  Fuel cells Microfluidic fuel cells can use laminar flow to separate the fuel and its
oxidant to control the interaction of the two fluids without a physical barrier as
would be required in conventional fuel cells.

 Astrobiology In order to understand the prospects for life to exist elsewhere in the
universe, astrobiologists are interested in measuring the chemical composition of
extraplanetary bodies. Because of their small size and wide-ranging functionality,
microfluidic devices are uniquely suited for these remote sample analyses.

 Biology Microfluidics finds applications in molecular biology, DNA chips, evolutionary

biology, study of cell behaviour, cellular biophysics, etc
Advances in microfluidics technology are revolutionizing molecular biology procedures
for enzymatic analysis, DNA analysis
An emerging application area for biochips is clinical pathology

References
 Fundamentals and Applications of Microfluidics by Nam-Trung and Nguyen Steven T.
Wereley
 https://www.elveflow.com/microfluidic-tutorials/microfluidic-reviews-and-
tutorials/microfluidics-and-microfluidic-device-a-review/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfluidics
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics
 http://miriam-english.org/files/fluidics/FluidControlDevices.html