PAPER BASED INTEGRATED MICROFLUIDIC SYSTEM USING ELECTRO-OSMOTIC PUMPS WITH LIQUID BRIDGES

This paper reports paper based electro-osmotic pumps (EOPs) with liquid bridge connections, their design optimization and integration for the first time. Electrodes are placed to reservoir openings of liquid bridges not to expose the sample liquid to electric field. This results in a standard EOP design with width and length parameters. Computational optimization is used to design the devices. They are implemented on paper substrates using wax printing. 50 μm/s electro-osmotic velocity is achieved under 113 V/cm electric field magnitude using DI water. Around 1 μL/min volumetric flow rate is achieved with 70 μA electrical current using 2 mM NaCl solution. An example system with two paper EOPs mixing two different liquids demonstrate their integration capability.