A microfluidic device for mechanical profiling of hydrogel microparticles

Abstract

This paper reports a continuous flow microfluidic device capable of measuring the geometric and viscoelastic properties of hydrogel microparticles by flowing them into a tapered microchannel with an interdigitated microelectrode array patterned underneath. The geometric and viscoelastic properties of microbeads/microcapsules are derived from their motion profiles monitored by the microelectrode array. Different from previous studies, the measurement inaccuracy associated with the negligence of the viscous effect is avoided. This work also eliminates the complicated optical systems used in previous microfluidic approaches, which makes it a truly miniaturized system with great potential for real-time characterization, separation, and sorting of particulate species based on their geometric and viscoelastic properties in a non-laboratory setting.