Electrophoresis, Vol.25, No.21-22, 3761-3768, 2004
Gravity-induced convective flow in microfluidic systems: Electrochemical characterization and application to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay tests
A way of using gravity flow to induce a linear convection within a microfluidic system is presented. It is shown and mathematically supported that tilting a 1 cm long covered microchannel is enough to generate flow rates up to 1000 nL(.)min(-1), which represents a linear velocity of 2.4 mm(.)s(-1). This paper also presents a method to monitor the microfluidic events occurring in a covered microchannel when a difference of pressure is applied to force a solution to flow in said covered microchannel, thanks to electrodes inserted in the microfluidic device. Gravity-induced flow monitored electrochemically is applied to the performance of a parallel-microchannel enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) of the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) with electrochemical detection. A simple method for generating and monitoring fluid flows is described, which can, for instance, be used for controlling parallel assays in microsystems.
Keywords:enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay;gravity-induced convective flow;microfluidic system;miniaturization;thyroid-stimulating hormone