Inkjet patterned superhydrophobic paper for open-air surface microfluidic devices

Abstract

We present a facile approach for the fabrication of low-cost surface biomicrofluidic devices on superhydrophobic paper created by drop-casting a fluoroacrylic copolymer onto microtextured paper. Wettability patterning is performed with a common household printer, which produces regions of varying wettability by simply controlling the intensity of ink deposited over prespecified domains. The procedure produces surfaces that are capable of selective droplet sliding and adhesion, when inclined. Using this methodology, we demonstrate the ability to tune the sliding angles of 10 μL water droplets in the range from 13° to 40° by printing lines of constant ink intensity and varied width from 0.1 mm to 2 mm. We also formulate a simple model to predict the onset of droplet sliding on printed lines of known width and wettability. Experiments demonstrate open-air surface microfluidic devices that are capable of pumpless transport, mixing and rapid droplet sampling (~0.6 μL at 50 Hz). Lastly, post treatment of printed areas with pH indicator solutions exemplifies the utility of these substrates in point-of-care diagnostics, which are needed at geographical locations where access to sophisticated testing equipment is limited or non-existent.