Cheng Nie, Hyorim Jeong, Kyung-A. Hyun, Sunyoung Park and Hyo-Il Jung
{"title":"Capillary force-driven reverse-Tesla valve structure for microfluidic bioassays†","authors":"Cheng Nie, Hyorim Jeong, Kyung-A. Hyun, Sunyoung Park and Hyo-Il Jung","doi":"10.1039/D4AN00601A","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p >Biological assays involve the lysis of biological particles, enzyme reactions, and gene amplification, and require a certain amount of time for completion. Microfluidic chips are regarded as powerful devices for biological assays and <em>in vitro</em> diagnostics; however, they cannot achieve a high mixing efficiency, particularly in some time-consuming biological reactions. Herein, we introduce a microfluidic reverse-Tesla (reTesla) valve structure in which the fluid is affected by vortices and branch flow convergence, resulting in flow retardation and a high degree of mixing. The reTesla is passively operated by a microfluidic capillary force without any pumping facility. Compared with our previously developed micromixers, this innovative pumpless microfluidic chip exhibited high performance, with a mixing efficiency of more than 93%. The versatility of our reTesla chip will play a pivotal role in the study of various biological and chemical reactions.</p>","PeriodicalId":63,"journal":{"name":"Analyst","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Analyst","FirstCategoryId":"92","ListUrlMain":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/an/d4an00601a","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Biological assays involve the lysis of biological particles, enzyme reactions, and gene amplification, and require a certain amount of time for completion. Microfluidic chips are regarded as powerful devices for biological assays and in vitro diagnostics; however, they cannot achieve a high mixing efficiency, particularly in some time-consuming biological reactions. Herein, we introduce a microfluidic reverse-Tesla (reTesla) valve structure in which the fluid is affected by vortices and branch flow convergence, resulting in flow retardation and a high degree of mixing. The reTesla is passively operated by a microfluidic capillary force without any pumping facility. Compared with our previously developed micromixers, this innovative pumpless microfluidic chip exhibited high performance, with a mixing efficiency of more than 93%. The versatility of our reTesla chip will play a pivotal role in the study of various biological and chemical reactions.