Ethanol and UV-assisted instantaneous bonding of PMMA assemblies and tuning in bonding reversibility

Abstract Here, we introduce an instantaneous and robust strategy for bonding poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) substrates via ethanol treatment combined with subsequent UV irradiation under ambient conditions, and examine the bonding reversibility by varying the percentage of the ethanolic solution manufactured. Organic solvent such as ethanol can activate the surface of PMMA without sacrificing the optical property of the PMMA substrate, and a subsequent exposure to UV recrosslinks the diffused monomers of acrylate functionalities to realize permanent bonding of two PMMA substrates under mild and ambient experimental conditions, which minimizes the deformation of channel profiles. To achieve robust sealing, two PMMA substrates were immediately placed in direct contact with each other after the treatment with ethanolic solution, and were irradiated under UV. Permanent sealing was realized in less than 1 min. Various bonding analyses were conducted by performing tensile strength measurement, high-throughput leakage test, burst test, and peel test. The highest bonding strength was determined to be approximately 6.17 MPa when 90% ethanolic solution was employed, and the bonding was sufficiently robust to endure intense introduction of liquid whose per-minute injection volume was almost 1200-fold higher than the total internal volume of the microchannel adopted. We also investigated the potential in the manipulation of bonding reversibility, and the critical percentage of ethanolic solution to realize irreversible bonding for PMMA assemblies based on the proposed strategy was determined to be just over 50%.

[1]  Martin Pumera,et al.  Towards disposable lab‐on‐a‐chip: Poly(methylmethacrylate) microchip electrophoresis device with electrochemical detection , 2002, Electrophoresis.

[2]  Shu-Hui Chen,et al.  Analysis of DNA fragments by microchip electrophoresis fabricated on poly(methyl methacrylate) substrates using a wire‐imprinting method , 2000, Electrophoresis.

[3]  Martin Dufva,et al.  Transparent polymeric cell culture chip with integrated temperature control and uniform media perfusion. , 2006, BioTechniques.

[4]  Kenneth J. Weible,et al.  Rectangular channels for lab-on-a-chip applications , 2003 .

[5]  Ford,et al.  Polymeric microelectromechanical systems , 2000, Analytical chemistry.

[6]  C. R. Becer,et al.  Solubility and Thermoresponsiveness of PMMA in Alcohol-Water Solvent Mixtures , 2010 .

[7]  Woo-Kul Lee,et al.  Effect of surface modification on the in vitro calcium phosphate growth on the surface of poly(methyl methacrylate) and bioactivity. , 2010, Colloids and surfaces. B, Biointerfaces.

[8]  Yu-jiang Xie,et al.  Vacuum-assisted thermal bonding of plastic capillary electrophoresis microchip imprinted with stainless steel template. , 2004, Journal of chromatography. A.

[9]  Kin Fong Lei,et al.  Microfluidic channel fabrication by PDMS-interface bonding , 2006 .

[10]  Che-Hsin Lin,et al.  Low azeotropic solvent for bonding of PMMA microfluidic devices , 2007 .

[11]  Anders Kristensen,et al.  PMMA to SU-8 bonding for polymer based lab-on-a-chip systems with integrated optics , 2004 .

[12]  Steven A. Soper,et al.  Surface modification of polymer-based microfluidic devices , 2002 .

[13]  Steven A Soper,et al.  Electrokinetically synchronized polymerase chain reaction microchip fabricated in polycarbonate. , 2005, Analytical chemistry.

[14]  Guoqing Chen,et al.  Hot embossing/bonding of a poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) microfluidic chip , 2007 .

[15]  A Paulus,et al.  Rapid, parallel separations of d1S80 alleles in a plastic microchannel chip. , 2000, Journal of chromatography. A.

[16]  K. Suh,et al.  On the role of oxygen in fabricating microfluidic channels with ultraviolet curable materials. , 2008, Lab on a chip.

[17]  Kin Fong Lei,et al.  Microwave bonding of polymer-based substrates for potential encapsulated micro/nanofluidic device fabrication , 2004 .

[18]  Francis Barany,et al.  Polymerase chain reaction/ligase detection reaction/hybridization assays using flow-through microfluidic devices for the detection of low-abundant DNA point mutations. , 2006, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[19]  H. Becker,et al.  Polymer hot embossing with silicon master structures , 1999 .

[20]  Gang Liu,et al.  Study of PMMA thermal bonding , 2006 .

[21]  R. McCormick,et al.  Microchannel electrophoretic separations of DNA in injection-molded plastic substrates. , 1997, Analytical chemistry.

[22]  Cheng-Wey Wei,et al.  Direct-write laser micromachining and universal surface modification of PMMA for device development , 2004 .

[23]  Bong Hyun Chung,et al.  Novel poly(dimethylsiloxane) bonding strategy via room temperature "chemical gluing". , 2009, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[24]  Yu-Cheng Lin,et al.  A poly-methylmethacrylate electrophoresis microchip with sample preconcentrator , 2001 .

[25]  Bingcheng Lin,et al.  Analysis of multiplex PCR fragments with PMMA microchip , 2006, Talanta.

[26]  Yi-Chu Hsu,et al.  Applying Taguchi methods for solvent-assisted PMMA bonding technique for static and dynamic μ-TAS devices , 2007, Biomedical microdevices.

[27]  D. DeVoe,et al.  Bonding of thermoplastic polymer microfluidics , 2009 .

[28]  Gwo-Bin Lee,et al.  Plastic microchip electrophoresis for genetic screening: The analysis of polymerase chain reactions products of fragile X (CGG)n alleles , 2001, Electrophoresis.

[29]  Feng Xu,et al.  DNA separation by microchip electrophoresis using low‐viscosity hydroxypropylmethylcellulose‐50 solutions enhanced by polyhydroxy compounds , 2002, Electrophoresis.

[30]  R. G. Christensen,et al.  Fabrication of plastic microfluid channels by imprinting methods. , 1997, Analytical chemistry.

[31]  Holger Becker,et al.  Hot embossing as a method for the fabrication of polymer high aspect ratio structures , 2000 .

[32]  Gwo-Bin Lee,et al.  Microfabricated plastic chips by hot embossing methods and their applications for DNA separation and detection , 2000, SPIE MOEMS-MEMS.

[33]  Andreas Neyer,et al.  A new PMMA-microchip device for isotachophoresis with integrated conductivity detector , 2001 .

[34]  Steffen Hardt,et al.  Integrated polymer chip for two-dimensional capillary gel electrophoresis. , 2004, Lab on a chip.

[35]  Z. Fang,et al.  Static adsorptive coating of poly(methyl methacrylate) microfluidic chips for extended usage in DNA separations , 2005, Electrophoresis.

[36]  Shaochen Chen,et al.  Polydimethylsioxane fluidic interconnects for microfluidic systems , 2003 .

[37]  K. Young,et al.  Plastic microchip electrophoresis for analysis of PCR products of hepatitis C virus. , 1999, Clinical chemistry.

[38]  Shawn D. Llopis,et al.  Contact conductivity detection in poly(methyl methacrylate)-based microfluidic devices for analysis of mono- and polyanionic molecules. , 2002, Analytical chemistry.

[39]  Yang-Wei Lin,et al.  Analysis of double-stranded DNA by microchip capillary electrophoresis using polymer solutions containing gold nanoparticles. , 2003, Journal of chromatography. A.

[40]  Zhao-Lun Fang,et al.  DNA separation with low-viscosity sieving matrix on microfabricated polycarbonate microfluidic chips , 2005, Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry.

[41]  Sanboh Lee,et al.  Ethanol‐induced crack healing in poly(methyl methacrylate) , 1994 .

[42]  K Watanabe,et al.  RNA chip: quality assessment of RNA by microchannel linear gel electrophoresis in injection-molded plastic chips. , 1998, Clinical chemistry.

[43]  Frantisek Svec,et al.  Room-temperature bonding for plastic high-pressure microfluidic chips. , 2007, Analytical chemistry.