One of the reasons I am trying to develop these techniques for acrylic microfluidics is to shorten the design-build-test feedback loop. With the PDMS techniques I worked on and grad school the loop is about a week long. It takes a day to design, a few days to get the photomask, and a day or two to fabricate. If nothing goes wrong, I use to be able to get a design tested on day five.

With acrylic based microfluidics, the loop is much shorter. I can modify a design, cut it with the laser, fabricate the chip, and have it tested all within three hours. Three hours is a significant improvement over five days.

This morning I came in and cut a new chip with some new parameters. I was hoping to see a narrower width channel which would produce smaller droplets. I didn’t get that, but I can try again (tomorrow not next week). Plus, I learned something. I need to add a viewing area to the chip to see the droplets better.

I made a little video of some of the process. I skipped the bonding step in the video because it’s just 10 minutes of waiting while the hot press does its work.

Here are parts 1 2 3 4, 5 and 6.