Integrated fluidic system for bio-molecule separation

An integrated fluidic system has been fabricated, capable of separating a mixture of different bio-molecules into its components. It is composed of a filter and an actuator; the pressure generated by the actuator sustains the flow of the mixture through the filter. The actuator is made by stacking several layers of conductive polymer. Actuator strain in excess of 10% has been obtained, which corresponds to a fluid flow of 3 microL/min in the fabricated system. The filter consists of an ordered array of Si micro-pillars. A mixture composed of DNA fragments of different length (300 and 400 base-pair) has been effectively separated by using the fabricated filter and chromatographic techniques.