Thiolene and SIFEL-based Microfluidic Platforms for Liquid-Liquid Extraction

Trends and challenges in microfluidic methods for protein manipulation-A review

Proteins are important molecules involved in an immensely large number of biological processes. Being capable of manipulating proteins is critical for developing reliable and affordable techniques to analyze and/or detect them. Such techniques would enable the production of therapeutic agents for the treatment of diseases or other biotechnological applications (e.g., bioreactors or biocatalysis). Microfluidic technology represents a potential solution to protein manipulation challenges because of the diverse phenomena that can be exploited to achieve micro- and nanoparticle manipulation. In this review, we discuss recent contributions made in the field of protein manipulation in microfluidic systems using different physicochemical principles and techniques, some of which are miniaturized versions of already established macro-scale techniques.

Atmospheric pressure atomic layer deposition to increase organic solvent resistance of PDMS

We explore three variants of atomic layer deposition (ALD) to deposit titanium oxide on the soft polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). We show that the organic solvent resistance of PDMS is increased by two orders of magnitude compared to uncoated PDMS for ALD performed at atmospheric pressure, which results in a unique surface-subsurface coating of PDMS.

Core-shell nanoparticles used in drug delivery-microfluidics: a review

Developments in the fields of lab-on-a-chip and microfluidic technology have benefited nanomaterial production processes due to fluid miniaturization. The ability to acquire, manage, create, and modify structures on a nanoscale is of great interest in scientific and technological fields. Recently, more attention has been paid to the production of core-shell nanomaterials because of their use in various fields, such as drug delivery. Heterostructured nanomaterials have more reliable performance than the individual core or shell materials. Nanoparticle synthesis is a complex process; therefore, various techniques exist for the production of different types of nanoparticles. Among these techniques, microfluidic methods are unique and reliable routes, which can be used to produce nanoparticles for drug delivery applications.

Thiol-Ene Based Polymers as Versatile Materials for Microfluidic Devices for Life Sciences Applications

While there is a steady growth in the number of microfluidics applications, the search for an optimal material that delivers the diverse characteristics needed for the numerous tasks is still nowhere close to being settled. Often overlooked and still underrepresented, the thiol-ene family of polymer materials has an enormous potential for applications in organs-on-a-chip, droplet productions, microanalytics, and point of care testing. In this review, the main characteristics of the thiol-ene materials are given, and advantages and drawbacks with respect to their potential in microfluidic chip fabrication are critically assessed. Select applications, which exploit the versatility of the thiol-ene polymers, are presented and discussed. It is concluded that, in particular, the rapid prototyping possibility combined with the material's resulting mechanical strength, solvent resistance, and biocompatibility, as well as the inherently easy surface functionalization, are strong factors to make thiol-ene polymers strong contenders for promising future materials for many biological, clinical, and technical lab-on-a-chip applications.

Perspectives on the Use of Liquid Extraction for Radioisotope Purification

The reliable and efficient production of radioisotopes for diagnosis and therapy is becoming an increasingly important capability, due to their demonstrated utility in Nuclear Medicine applications. Starting from the first processes involving the separation of ^99mTc from irradiated materials, several methods and concepts have been developed to selectively extract the radioisotopes of interest. Even though the initial methods were based on liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) approaches, the perceived difficulty in automating such processes has slowly moved the focus towards resin separation methods, whose basic chemical principles are often similar to the LLE ones in terms of chelators and phases. However, the emerging field of flow chemistry allows LLE to be easily automated and operated in a continuous manner, resulting in an even improved efficiency and reliability. In this contribution, we will outline the fundamentals of LLE processes and their translation into flow-based apparatuses; in addition, we will provide examples of radioisotope separations that have been achieved using LLE methods. This article is intended to offer insights about the future potential of LLE to purify medically relevant radioisotopes.

Highly Fluorinated Methacrylates for Optical 3D Printing of Microfluidic Devices

Highly fluorinated perfluoropolyether (PFPE) methacrylates are of great interest for transparent and chemically resistant microfluidic chips. However, so far only a few examples of material formulations for three-dimensional (3D) printing of these polymers have been demonstrated. In this paper we show that microfluidic chips can be printed using these highly fluorinated polymers by 3D stereolithography printing. We developed photocurable resin formulations that can be printed in commercial benchtop stereolithography printers. We demonstrate that the developed formulations can be printed with minimal cross-sectional area of 600 µm for monolithic embedded microfluidic channels and 200 µm for open structures. The printed and polymerized PFPE methacrylates show a good transmittance above 70% at wavelengths between 520–900 nm and a high chemical resistance when being exposed to organic solvents. Microfluidic mixers were printed to demonstrate the great variability of different designs that can be printed using stereolithography.