Toward a disposable low-cost LOC device: heterogeneous polymer micro-valve and -pump fabricated by UV/Ozone-assisted thermal fusion bonding
Journal
RSC Advances
Date
2020.07.29
Abstract
A heterogeneous polymer micro-valve and -pump with polypropylene (PP) membrane has been developed in a low-cost manner via UV/Ozone-assisted thermal fusion bonding. Moreover, the proposed fabrication technique allowed a geometrically selective bonding, and thereby the membrane bonding to the valve seat of the diaphragm micro-valve could be prevented without patterning a protection layer or an additional structure. The developed device could withstand 480 kPa of a static pressure and up to 350 kPa of a vibration pressure, which provides a sufficient bonding strength for microfluidic actuations. The fabricated micro-valve and -pump have been fully characterized and compared with a PDMS membrane glass device, showing a comparable valving and pumping performance. As a result, the robust PP membrane micro-valve and -pump have been simply implemented and demonstrated an excellent performance, which is highly desirable for mass-production of disposable lab-on-a-chip (LOC) applications.