Integration of Epicyclic Gearing for Continuous Flow in a Centrifugal Microfluidic System

摘要

A reflow system based on the reverse rotation of a centrifugal chip has been reported previously by our group. It allows the cell suspension to simply interact with the hydrodynamic traps several times which could provide a higher probability of trapping. This enables the decrease in the number of wasted cells in a suspension perfused through a typical microfluidic chip. Microfluidics technology has proven its usefulness in preparing single cells for Life Science Research. In our previous design, a trapping efficiency of 85% was obtained using THP-1 cells at a lower rpm (300 rpm). However, one main problem is the high variability of the performance of each chip due to the innate non-uniformity in chip fabrication. As a solution, it was decided to integrate a planetary gear in controlling the motion of the chip. Instead of inducing a reflow, a continuous flow was induced brought by the motion of the chip. This report presents the optimization of the platform.