Superhydrophobic valve for microfluidics

Abstract

Capillary valve (CV) is one of the passive valves used to control the fluid flow in microfluidics. Many designs and applications have been based on the capillary valve including the compact-disk microfluidic platform technology. However, the valve loses its function when being used to hold the protein solutions or subject to protein solutions which are applied to treat the surface for non-specific binding. A novel "fishbone" micro-valve design based on the concept of superhydrophobicity was developed in this study. The experimental results showed that the valve remains its function even being subject to the protein solutions. It was also tested on the CD microfluidic platform in which the flow control was demonstrated during disk rotation under various conditions.