Hydrophilic surface modification of PDMS for droplet microfluidics using a simple, quick, and robust method via PVA deposition
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Published version
Author(s)
Trantidou, T
Elani, Y
Parsons, E
Ces, O
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a dominant material in the fabrication of microfluidic devices to generate water-in-oil droplets, particularly lipid-stabilized droplets, because of its highly hydrophobic nature. However, its key property of hydrophobicity has hindered its use in the microfluidic generation of oil-in-water droplets, which requires channels to have hydrophilic surface properties. In this article, we developed, optimized, and characterized a method to produce PDMS with a hydrophilic surface via the deposition of polyvinyl alcohol following plasma treatment and demonstrated its suitability for droplet generation. The proposed method is simple, quick, effective, and low cost and is versatile with respect to surfactants, with droplets being successfully generated using both anionic surfactants and more biologically relevant phospholipids. This method also allows the device to be selectively patterned with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions, leading to the generation of double emulsions and inverted double emulsions.
Date Issued
2017-04-24
Date Acceptance
2016-11-28
Citation
Microsystems and Nanoengineering, 2017, 3
ISSN
2055-7434
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Microsystems and Nanoengineering
Volume
3
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2017. his work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article
’
s Creative Commons license, unless indicated
otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons
license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the
material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/
International License. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article
’
s Creative Commons license, unless indicated
otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons
license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the
material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Grant Number
EP/N016998/1
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
16091