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Volume: 33 | Article ID: art00019
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Design and Fabrication of Microfluidics Paper-Based Devices for Contaminant Detection Using aWax Printer
  DOI :  10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2021.16.COLOR-339  Published OnlineJanuary 2021
Abstract

In this paper, we introduce an eight-channel paper-based microfluidic device that aims to detect multiple chemicals at once. The microfluidic device we propose is fabricated by wax printing on filter paper, which is trouble-free to handle, low cost, and easy to fabricate. As a hydrophobic material, wax (solid ink) defines the hydrophilic channels for testing. By using image processing techniques, we analyze the width change caused by heating of wax strokes and wax channels, which is a necessary step in the wax printing fabrications. In the same way, we test the minimum width of a channel that allows solutions to cross through and the minimum width of a barrier that is hydrophobic and blocks liquid flow. We also compare two different heating methods, the heat gun and the hot plate, by checking the wax channel width before and after heating based on our image processing pipeline. We conclude that a heat gun will be better for heating channels with relatively large widths. Using high resolution wax printing, we integrate multiple devices on a single paper, which makes this method very cost-effective. Lamination of wax-printed paper based devices is also analyzed, as leakage on the back side of paper is sometimes worth attention.

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Qiyue Liang, Min Zhao, George T. C. Chiu, Jan P. Allebach, "Design and Fabrication of Microfluidics Paper-Based Devices for Contaminant Detection Using aWax Printerin Proc. IS&T Int’l. Symp. on Electronic Imaging: Color Imaging XXVI: Displaying, Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications,  2021,  pp 339-1 - 339-8,  https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2021.16.COLOR-339

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