Liquid polystyrene: a room-temperature photocurable soft lithography compatible pour-and-cure-type polystyrene

Area of Science:

• Microfluidics
• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry

Background:

• Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is the dominant material in microfluidics due to soft lithography, but has limitations in solvent resistance and hydrophobicity.
• Polystyrene (PS) offers superior properties for certain applications like cell-based assays but is difficult to prototype with using traditional methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel method for prototyping microfluidic devices using polystyrene (PS).
• To bridge the gap between microfluidic prototyping and industrial-scale manufacturing by utilizing a common material.

Main Methods:

• Development of a liquid PS prepolymer, termed "Liquid Polystyrene" (liqPS).
• Curing liqPS using visible light with soft replication templates (e.g., PDMS).
• Characterization of cured liqPS and comparison with commercial PS using cell-based assays (mouse fibroblasts L929).

Main Results:

• liqPS allows for microfluidic prototyping with PS using soft lithography, similar to PDMS.
• Cured liqPS is chemically and physically identical to commercial PS.
• Cell studies showed no discernible difference between liqPS and commercial PS devices.

Conclusions:

• liqPS provides a facile prototyping method for polystyrene microfluidic devices.
• This approach enables seamless transition from research prototyping to industrial manufacturing using the same material.
• liqPS expands material options in microfluidics, overcoming limitations of PDMS for specific applications.