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A versatile valving toolkit for automating fluidic operations in paper microfluidic devices.

Bhushan J Toley1, Jessica A Wang, Mayuri Gupta

  • 1Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-5061, USA. btoley@uw.edu.

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Area of Science:

  • Microfluidics
  • Biotechnology
  • Materials Science

Background:

  • Paper microfluidic devices offer low-cost platforms for diagnostics but are limited by complex fluidic control.
  • Existing paper microfluidic systems lack robust valving and automation, restricting their application scope.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop and demonstrate a novel toolkit of paper microfluidic valves and automatic actuation methods.
  • To overcome limitations in fluidic operation complexity in paper-based devices.

Main Methods:

  • Developed paper microfluidic valves actuated by movable paper strips and fluid-triggered expanding elements.
  • Implemented timed actuation (by wick length) and volume-metered actuation (by metering pad size).
  • Demonstrated automatic valve control based on time or fluid volume passage.

Main Results:

  • Achieved >8.5% accuracy for timed valve actuation and >9% accuracy for volume-metered actuation.
  • Valves actuate with ~30 μl fluid, with switching times from ~5 s to ~50 s.
  • Successfully applied the valving toolkit in a multi-step assay for malaria protein detection (PfHRP2).

Conclusions:

  • The developed valving and automation toolkit significantly expands the capabilities of paper microfluidic devices.
  • This strategy enables arbitrarily complex, multi-step fluidic operations on paper-based platforms.
  • The technology holds promise for advancing point-of-care diagnostics and other lab-on-a-chip applications.