Fully integrated whole blood testing by real-time absorption measurement on a centrifugal platform

We present a novel microfluidic concept to enable a fast colorimetric alcohol assay from a single droplet of whole blood. The reduced turn-around time of 150 seconds is, on the one hand, achieved by a full process integration including metering, mixing with reagents, and sedimentation of cellular constituents. On the other hand, our novel total internal reflection (TIR) scheme allows to monitor the increase of the absorbance values in real-time. Thus, the saturation values can be predicted accurately based on an extrapolation of real-time measurements acquired during a 100 second initial period of rotation. Additionally, we present a metering structure to define nanolitre sample volumes at a coefficient of variation (CV) below 5%.