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Gravity‐induced convective flow in microfluidic systems: Electrochemical characterization and application to enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay tests
Author(s) -
Morier Patrick,
Vollet Christine,
Michel Philippe E.,
Reymond Frédéric,
Rossier Joël S.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/elps.200406093
Subject(s) - microchannel , microfluidics , microsystem , flow (mathematics) , chemistry , mechanics , materials science , convective flow , analytical chemistry (journal) , electrode , nanotechnology , convection , chromatography , physics
Abstract A way of using gravity flow to induce a linear convection within a microfluidic system is presented. It is shown and mathematically supported that tilting a 1 cm long covered microchannel is enough to generate flow rates up to 1000 nL·min ‐1 , which represents a linear velocity of 2.4 mm·s ‐1 . This paper also presents a method to monitor the microfluidic events occurring in a covered microchannel when a difference of pressure is applied to force a solution to flow in said covered microchannel, thanks to electrodes inserted in the microfluidic device. Gravity‐induced flow monitored electrochemically is applied to the performance of a parallel‐microchannel enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) of the thyroid‐stimulating hormone (TSH) with electrochemical detection. A simple method for generating and monitoring fluid flows is described, which can, for instance, be used for controlling parallel assays in microsystems.