Fabrication of large-area polymer microfilter membranes and their application for particle and cell enrichment

From National Research Council Canada

DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C6LC01525E
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Name affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada. Medical Devices
FormatText, Article
Journal titleLab Chip
ISSN1473-0197
1473-0189
Volume17
Issue11
Pages1960–1969
Abstract
A vacuum assisted UV micro-molding (VAUM) process is proposed for the fabrication of freestanding and defect-free polymer membranes based on a UV-curable methacrylate polymer (MD 700). VAUM is a highly flexible and powerful method for fabricating low cost, robust, large-area membranes over 9 × 9 cm2 with pore sizes from 8 to 20 μm in diameter, 20 to 100 μm in thickness, high aspect ratio (the thickness of the polymer over the diameter of the hole is up to 15 : 1), high porosity, and a wide variety of geometrical characteristics. The fabricated freestanding membranes are flexible while mechanically robust enough for post manipulation and handling, which allows them to be cut and integrated as a plastic cartridge onto thermoplastic 3D microfluidic devices with single or double filtration stages. Very high particle capture efficiencies (≈98%) have been demonstrated in the microfluidic devices integrated with polymer membranes, even when the size of the beads is very close to the size of the pores of the microfilter. About 85% of the capture efficiency has been achieved in cancer cell trapping experiments, in which a breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231) spiked with phosphate-buffered saline buffer when the pore size of the filter is 8 μm and the device is operated at a flow rate of 0.1 mL min−1.
Publication date
PublisherRoyal Society of Chemistry
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
NPARC number23002374
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