Fabrication of a picoliter microreactor with multilayer elastomer values

Abstract

Microfluidics has the ability to greatly reduce the time needed to do many biological tests. The development of polymers has brought about substrates with elastomeric properties that can be used to the advantage of microfluidic device design. Elastomeric polymers can be used to create small scale passive valve systems. These valves can compartmentalize reactions in devices. Current microreactors only allow researchers to do one test at a time. Devices with the capability to compartmentalize reactions using valves could perform multiple reactions simultaneously. This thesis details the fabrication and design of a microreactor that can maintain cells in the device after a reaction. The fabrication of the device was done without a clean room and using no specialized equipment. Creation of the device and using it for testing requires little training and takes less time than performing the test using conventional methods. The device could readily be made and used by researchers using equipment already in their lab and is cheaper than current devices on the market.