Manufacturability of lab on chip devices : reagent-filled reservoirs bonding process and its effect on reagents flow pattern

Abstract

In its lab-on-a-chip product, Daktari Diagnostics utilizes "reagent-filled reservoirs" as a means of storing and delivering the liquid reagent. During the clinical trials of the product, undesired reagent flow patterns (namely, flow anomaly 1 & flow anomaly 2) were noticed. This work focused on optimizing the bonding process of the reagent-filled reservoirs to the backbone. Also, the relationship between the bonding process parameters and the reagent flow pattern was studied in depth. To achieve the objective of this thesis, an experiment was designed in which independent variables were the heat sealing parameters (x, y, z) and accelerated aging and the dependent variables were bond strength and the reagent flow pattern. Experiments showed that optimal Heat Sealing parameters are: parameter x = 4.5, parameter y = 110 and parameter z = 1.5. At the optimal settings of bonding process, the highest bond strength was attained and the reagent flow improved considerably but flow anomalies were not completely resolved. Also, results showed that accelerated aging affected the bond strength negatively. Accelerated aging also affected the flow pattern negatively, but this effect was not statistically significant.