Ultrasonic bonding for thermoplastic microfluidic devices without energy director

Thermal assisted ultrasonic bonding and solvent assisted ultrasonic bonding for thermoplastic microfluidic devices are proposed in this paper. Both of these two methods are non-molten bonding, energy director is not employed and thus avoided the problem of controlling the molten polymer flow along the microstructure during bonding process. Ultrasonic bonding system and interfacial temperature testing system were established. The critical amplitude for bonding was chosen by interfacial temperature tests to keep the bonding interface below glass transition temperature (T"g) of the polymer. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microfluidic devices were bonded by both thermal assisted ultrasonic bonding and solvent assisted ultrasonic bonding with the bonding time of 30s and 20s, respectively, while the tensile strength of 0.95MPa and 2.25MPa, respectively. The bonding area was 27mmx51mm, the maximum dimension loss for the microstructure was 0.66%+/-0.60. A four-layer PMMA microfluidic device was also bonded using thermal assisted ultrasonic bonding, demonstrated the advantage of localized heating character of ultrasonic bonding and did some preliminary work in multilayer polymer MEMS device bonding. This paper provided the potential high throughput bonding methods for mass production of polymer microfluidic devices.

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

[2]  C. Klapperich,et al.  Mechanical and chemical analysis of plasma and ultraviolet-ozone surface treatments for thermal bonding of polymeric microfluidic devices. , 2007, Lab on a chip.

[3]  H. Potente.  Ultrasonic welding — Principles & theory , 1984 .

[4]  L. P. Hromada,et al.  Low temperature bonding of PMMA and COC microfluidic substrates using UV/ozone surface treatment. , 2007, Lab on a chip.

[5]  A. Yousefpour,et al.  Fusion Bonding/Welding of Thermoplastic Composites , 2004 .

[6]  Sum Huan Ng,et al.  Microfluidic connectors by ultrasonic welding , 2009 .

[7]  Roland Zengerle,et al.  Rapid prototyping of microfluidic chips in COC , 2007 .

[8]  Zhan Chen,et al.  Solventless adhesive bonding using reactive polymer coatings. , 2008, Analytical chemistry.

[9]  Fritz B Prinz,et al.  The construction of three-dimensional micro-fluidic scaffolds of biodegradable polymers by solvent vapor based bonding of micro-molded layers. , 2007, Biomaterials.

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

[11]  Adam T Woolley,et al.  Phase-changing sacrificial layer fabrication of multilayer polymer microfluidic devices. , 2008, Analytical chemistry.

[12]  W. Xiaodong,et al.  Microfluidic chip made of COP (cyclo-olefin polymer) and comparion to PMMA (polymethylmethacrylate) microfluidic chip , 2008 .

[13]  Holger Becker,et al.  Polymer microfabrication technologies for microfluidic systems , 2008, Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry.

[14]  A. Boglea,et al.  Fibre laser welding for packaging of disposable polymeric microfluidic-biochips , 2007 .

[15]  S. H. Ng,et al.  Thermally activated solvent bonding of polymers , 2008 .

[16]  Timothy G. Gutowski,et al.  Ultrasonic welding of PEEK graphite APC-2 composites , 1989 .

[17]  Mu Chiao,et al.  Ultrasonic Bonding for MEMS Sealing and Packaging , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging.

[18]  George Wypych,et al.  Handbook of Solvents , 2000 .

[19]  Yue Cheng,et al.  An ultrasonic welding based process for building up a new class of inert fluidic microsensors and -actuators from polymers , 2006 .

[20]  Christofer Hierold,et al.  SOLVENT ASSISTED BONDING OF POLYMETHYLMETHACRYLATE: CHARACTERIZATION USING THE RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY , 2009 .

[21]  Laurie Brown,et al.  Fabrication and characterization of poly(methylmethacrylate) microfluidic devices bonded using surface modifications and solvents. , 2006, Lab on a chip.

[22]  Angeliki Tserepi,et al.  Plasma processing for polymeric microfluidics fabrication and surface modification: Effect of super-hydrophobic walls on electroosmotic flow , 2008 .

[23]  Steven A Soper,et al.  96-well polycarbonate-based microfluidic titer plate for high-throughput purification of DNA and RNA. , 2008, Analytical chemistry.