Integration of a finger-actuated quantitative drive module for point-of-care blood typing chips

Abstract

Although point-of-care testing (POCT) chips offer the advantages of fluid manipulation without external energy and easy portability, they exhibit significant variability in fluid control due to individual operational differences. Therefore, this study developed a finger-actuated quantitative drive module, achieving quantitative fluid driving through its bolt-driven component screwing mechanism, spring return motion, and designed contact point size. The quantitative relationship between its key parameters and fluid-driven volume was elucidated through experiments, providing a theoretical basis for flow control. In addition, we further systematically characterize the consistency of this module’s driving performance. The results indicate that under a single-contact condition, the standard deviation of the single-drive volume for different operators is less than 5%. When using multi-contact parallel control, the maximum volume deviation of each contact is only 0.12 µL, demonstrating good consistency in parallel control. Finally, we integrated the module into our independently developed blood type detection chips and verified its excellent multi-fluid mixing ability through dual color tracing experiments. In double-blind blood type detection experiments, it was able to obtain blood type determination results consistent with traditional test tube methods within 5 min. This work provides an innovative solution for fluid quantitative drive control of POCT chips and demonstrates significant application potential in medical scenarios such as bedside diagnosis and on-site testing.