Nanowerk April 9, 2020
Currently, fluidic control in microdevices is mainly achieved either by external pumps and valves, which are expensive and bulky, or by valves integrated in the chip. Researchers in France propose a new paradigm for actuation in microfluidic devices based on rigid or semi-rigid walls with transversal dimensions of hundreds of micrometres that can slide within a microfluidic chip and to intersect microchannels with hand-driven or translation stage-based actuation. The new concept for reconfigurable microfluidics, the implementation of a wide range of functionalities was facilitated and allowed for no or limited dead volume, low cost and low footprint. They demonstrated several fluidic operations, including on/off or switch valving, where channels are blocked or reconfigured depending on the sliding wall geometry…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Sliding wall principle. PDMS structures contain a guiding channel and a fluidic channel and were bonded to a planar PDMS surface…Credit: © Microsystems & Nanoengineering