Wirelessly-controlled electrolysis pumps on lab-on-a-disc for automation of bioanalytical assays Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Electrolysis pumping on microfluidic CDs relies on pneumatic pressure to propel liquids against the direction of centrifugal force. This active pumping method operates in a closed fluidic network, which prevents introducing contaminations from the environment to the CD. However, due to two main reasons, the conventional pump has not been suitable for the automation of complex bioanalytical assays. First, the layout of the electrolysis pump requires a large space of the disc. Second, the slip-rings used for pump operation have a short number of connection ports and a short shelf-life due to mechanical wear. To overcome these challenges, we developed a compact 3D and wirelessly-controlled electrolysis pump. Compared to the conventional electrolysis pump, the 3D device allows for better use of the limited disc space, and therefore the integration of more pumping units and/or other fluidic components. Our 3D electrolysis pump is electrically supplied by an "electrified Lab-on-a-Disc"board that enables wireless control of several pumps, as well as other actuators or sensors, on spinning CDs. We developed an android application to control the activation of several electrolysis pumps simultaneously. To evaluate the liquid pumping with the proposed design, we recorded the time required to pump various liquid volumes from 20 to 120 mL. The EL pump showed repetitive behavior in terms of the time needed to displace specific volumes. As a proof of concept of the use of the pump in an application, we developed a centrifugal microfluidic device with several pumps and an active valve to automate the fluidic steps commonly used in an immunoassay with peptide-microarrays.

publication date

  • January 1, 2020