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With excellent manufacturing performance and complete equipment support, Creative Biolabs provides our clients with design, development and mass production services of thermoplastic microfluidic chips.

Thermoplastic Chips

Thermoplastic materials are an intermediate choice between silicon-based/glass and PDMS chips for fabrication costs. Such materials are very common in daily life with extremely low costs. Thermoplastics can be softened under certain temperature conditions and applied in downstream processing procedures, or to be reshaped for certain applications. Thermoplastics are widely used in modern industry-scale microfluidic systems. Typical microfluidic chip substrates include polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), cycloolefin copolymer (COC), polycarbonate (PC), and polystyrene (PS).

PMMA

PMMA is the most widely used inexpensive rigid thermoplastic in the field of microfluidic manufacturing. It is the least hydrophobic polymer among common plastics and is easily modified. Excellent mechanical properties and optical transparency make it a perfect choice for analytical and electrophoretic chips. Common molding methods for PMMA include laser engraving, micro-injection, hot embossing, and extrusion molding. The glass transition temperature of PMMA is 85-165°C.

COC

Cyclic olefin copolymers (COC) are amorphous thermoplastic copolymers composed of ethylene and norbornene using a metallocene catalyst. Materials synthesized from a single type of monomer are also called cycloolefin polymers (COP). COCs are one of the best-emerging materials for large-scale fabrication of microfluidic systems. COC has good permeability in the ultraviolet light band with better thermal stability, its water absorption is only one-tenth of PMMA. COC has excellent chemical inertness and resistance to acidic, alkaline reagents and most organic polar solvents including acetone, methanol and isopropanol. Its excellent optical properties and low autofluorescence make COC one of the excellent choices for optical detection chips. COC chips can be used as a perfect replacement for expensive glass chips in non-extreme temperature conditions. The glass transition temperature of COC is 70-177°C.

Fig 1. Channel cross-sections of COP chips sealed by different methods. (Wen, et al., 2021)

PC and PS

PC and PS are commonly used materials in biomedical research and bioanalysis chips. PC has the highest glass transition temperature (145°C), so it is widely used in polymerase chain reactions or DNA thermocycling chips. PS is surface-treatment convenient with good biocompatibility, which makes it one of the most commonly used materials for cell culture chips.

Table.1 Key physical characteristics of thermoplastics.

Fabrication of Thermoplastics

Hot embossing is one of the main fabrication methods for thermoplastics, and it is suitable for producing small-sized channels with lower depths. Micro injection molding refers to extruding molten raw materials into the mold under high pressure and vacuum after designing and building an applicable mold. An integrated high-precision microfluidic chip can be obtained after demolding and curing. Micro-injection molds are relatively expensive, so they are only suitable for mass production after the chip is shaped and verified. Laser engraving is a PMMA precise processing method developed in recent years, which is suitable for rapid prototyping of PMMA chips without molds, but usually has poor surface roughness.

Fig 2. Micro injection, hot embossing and laser engraving. (Creative Biolabs)

Related Services

Creative Biolabs has optimized the fully automatic or semi-automatic processing procedure of microfluidic chips. We select the most suitable fabrication approach according to our client's needs and chip functions and provide them with rapid, stable and comprehensive one-stop solution services for thermoplastic microfluidic chips. We provide a series of functional chip products with stable structures. We can also fabricate thermoplastic chips in large quantities and at low cost under your entrustment, and ensure the stability and repeatability between batches to the greatest extent. In addition, we also provide you with back-end services such as chip sealing and surface modification. Our optimized thermoplastic surface modification protocol can maintain stable hydrophilicity for a long time. In addition to PMMA, COC/COP, and PC, our service also covers PET, LDPE, PP, PVC, etc. With our help, you can effectively and cost-effectively reproduce your prototype chip in large quantities, so don't hesitate to contact us for more information.

Reference

1. Wen, X.P.; et al. Evaluation of the effects of solvents used in the fabrication of microfluidic devices on cell cultures. Micromachines. 2021, 12, 550.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.