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Micro-engineered liquid flow dissolves solids without dispersing them

Microfluidic devices have revolutionized biological assays, but complex set-ups are required to prevent the unwanted mixing of reagents in the liquid samples being analysed. A simpler solution has just been found.
  1. Robert Hołyst

    1. Robert Hołyst is at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw 01-224, Poland.

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  2. Piotr Garstecki

    1. Piotr Garstecki is at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw 01-224, Poland.

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In a paper in Nature, Gökçe et al.1 report a clever solution to a fundamental problem in microfluidics: a simple and inexpensive method for delivering a liquid to multiple dried reagents that doesn’t mix all the reagents together. By considering diffusion, convection (the flow along a channel) and capillary forces, the authors designed a microfluidic structure that produces a complicated, yet highly reproducible, liquid flow that first passes around dried spots of reagents and then back over them. This dissolves the dried reagents, but minimizes unwanted dispersal within the flow.

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Nature 574, 181-182 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02973-y

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