Characterization of glass frit capillary pumps for microfluidic devices

摘要

Here, we report on a low-cost, disposable microfluidic pump made from sieved glass particles. The pump overcomes the limitations of other passive pumping methods and can handle whole blood, which makes it useful for point-of-care diagnostics. Flow rates of up to 8.7 mu L/s and pumping volumes of up to 1 mL were demonstrated, but both can be adjusted by changing pump geometry and particle size. Finally, we demonstrate utility of this pump by attaching it to a commercially available point-of-care immunoassay system from mBio Diagnostics and demonstrating improved binding efficiencies with flow.