Microfluidics on foil

Lead Division
Micro-fluidics, Division 10

Other Divisions Participating
Polymers, Division 4
Metrology, Division 5

Summary
Micro fluidic applications increasingly make use of polymeric materials. These materials have proven their capability for miniaturisation in many fields in MST: Production technologies like hot embossing, micro injection moulding and micro machining are already powerful tools to form precise substrates for micro fluidics. Laminating and micro laser welding offer the possibility to seal micro fluidic channels or assemble miniscule components.

The task of this cross-divisional project will be to identify opportunities to make the production of these parts and assemblies easier, quicker and this way cheaper. Therefore an international state-of the-art for the existing technologies will be researched by the partners. As the knowledge of the partners within the project covers a broad field of technologies this opens up the possibility of giving a profound overview concerning micro fluidic manufacturing methods.

In the next step these methods will be analysed, especially for their aptitude to mass production and with a particular focus on reel-to-reel processing. The partners from four divisions within 4M will jointly develop a questionnaire for benchmarking, which will include economical criteria as well as technical ones This way not only single technologies will be benchmarked for this task but possible combinations will get investigated as well. Besides production technologies different methods for inline and separate quality checks -mainly fast optical methods- are the objective of the evaluation.

Based on the results of this evaluation a roadmap for micro fluidic systems on foil will be set up. This will include material issues as well as the identification of promising processes for the production and identification of critical design parameters. Using the benchmark outcomes it will be possible to rate the need for further development for these technologies and identify strong and weak points for each of them. Finally this roadmap will lead to possible application scenarios for foil based products. This step will show the potential impact of the new products on the market. Transferring the known technologies to foil materials offers the chance of cheap micro fluidic devices (for example disposables for blood analysis) but bears as well a high development risk. Hence the need for future research will be derived from these scenarios.

Status of this cross-divisional project
Completed May 2007. Final report available to Partners here.