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Tunable and Reversible Gelatin‐Based Bonding for Microfluidic Cell Culture
Author(s) -
Pitingolo Gabriele,
Riaud Antoine,
Nastruzzi Claudio,
Taly Valerie
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
advanced engineering materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.938
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1527-2648
pISSN - 1438-1656
DOI - 10.1002/adem.201900145
Subject(s) - polydimethylsiloxane , microfluidics , materials science , gelatin , microchannel , nanotechnology , microfluidic chip , anodic bonding , layer (electronics) , chemistry , biochemistry
The development of novel bonding techniques could enable new applications and uses of plastics in microfluidic cell culture, complementing the omnipresent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). In this respect, the present paper describes a reversible gelatin‐based method (named GEL‐D) for bonding microfluidic chip parts, constituted of different materials. The herein introduced method enables the bonding of the most of the commonly used materials in microfluidics such as PMMA, PDMS, glass and NOA. Notably, the fabricated chips resist to pressure up to 0.7 MPa, to organic solvent exposure and temperature up to 70 °C. To show the versatility of the described method, microchips with different sizes, materials, and geometries were bonded, including microchannel down to 200 µm (width x depth) and round microstructures. The bonded chips are suitable to microfluidic cell culture procedures, including formation of microtissues, cells viability analysis and confocal microscopy. Therefore, the room‐temperature bonding method appear to be highly efficient for cell culture on plastic chips, where in situ analysis of the seeded cells is required after microchip de‐bonding.