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Schuyler Vowell
Physics 486
March 12, 2009
Microfluidics
Microfluidics refers to the behavior and control of
liquids constrained to volumes near the L range.
Behavior of liquids in the micro domain differs greatly
from macroscopic fluids.
Surface tension.
Laminar flow.
Fast thermal relaxation.
Diffusion.
Interface
An interface is a smooth surface separating
two materials.
Real interfaces are not smooth, molecules from
each material mingle at an interface.
Surface Tension
Molecules in any medium experience an
attractive force with other molecules.
Mainly hydrogen bonds for polar molecules
Van der Waals forces for other molecules
Surface Tension
Let U be the average total cohesive energy of a
molecule, and be a characteristic dimension of a
molecule such that 2 represents the effective surface
area of a molecule, then surface tension is
approximately
Capillary Action
Capillary action refers to the movement of
liquid through thin tubes, not a specific force.
Several effects can contribute to capillary
action, all of which relate to surface tension
Minimization of surface energy
Young-Laplace equation: pressure difference due
to curvature of interface.
Capillary Rise
Capillary rise is a balance of
surface energy and gravitational
potential energy:
Young-Laplace Equation
The Young-Laplace equation describes the
relationship between a pressure difference
across an interface and the curvature of the
interface.
Marangoni Effect
A gradient in the surface tension along an
interface causes motion in surface molecules
and thus motion in the bulk. This is called the
Marangoni effect.
Applications of Microfluidics:
Biology (LOC)
Fast PCR using nanodroplets
Lab-on-a-Robot
Wireless mobile unit carrying an
electrochemical detection unit and HVPS.
After choosing a location, onboard GPS
navigates the robot to the test site. At test site,
a MEMS device diffuses a gas sample through
50 L of buffer solution. A small sample of
this solution is injected into a microfluidic
device that electrophoretically separates the
components of the gas. A detector sends realtime sampling data back to the base computer
running a LabVIEW program, which can be
used to relay new commands to the robot and
analyze the data transmitted from the robot.