Replication of a Printed Volatile Mold: a novel microfabrication method for advanced microfluidic systems

Rémy Brossard (1) , Thomas Brouchet (1) , Florent Malloggi (1)

1 LIONS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire sur l'Organisation Nanométrique et Supramoléculaire

A novel and simple method to fabricate microchannels is reported based on an inkjet printing of a volatile solid mold. A liquid ink -1,6 hexanediol- ejected from a piezoelectric nozzle is instantaneously frozen when touching a cooled substrate. The created mold is then poured with PDMS. Once the PDMS is crosslinked, the ink is sublimated and the device is ready. With this approach it is possible to make microchannels on diferent nature surfaces such as glass, paper, uncross-linked PDMS layer or non planar substrates. The versatility of this method is illustrated by printing channels directly on commercial electrodes and measuring the channel capacitance. Moreover, millimetric height microfuidic systems are easily produced (aspect ratio≥25) as well as 3D structures such as bridges. To demonstrate, we have fabricated a combinatorial microfuidic system which makes 6 mixtures from 4 initial solutions without any stacking and tedious alignment procedure.

Domaines: Matériaux

Rémy Brossard, Thomas Brouchet, Florent Malloggi. Replication of a Printed Volatile Mold: a novel microfabrication method for advanced microfluidic systems. Scientific Reports, 2019, 9 (1), pp.17473. ⟨10.1038/s41598-019-53729-7⟩. ⟨cea-02383519⟩