Check out this week鈥檚 VINSE Spotlight Publication from the Lippmann Lab featuring Dr. Daniel Chavarria and former School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV) student Immanuel Ojetola, who served as the paper鈥檚 second author while conducting this work at Vanderbilt. Their paper, 鈥淭olerances in microfluidic master molds: a comparison of 3D printing and micromilling,鈥� was published in RSC Advances.
Microfluidic fabrication techniques have greatly improved in the past three decades, with more affordable and accessible fabrication modalities emerging such as 3D printing and micromilling which are often used for generating microfluidic master molds for soft cast patterning. Although 3D printing and micromilling have been widely adopted, there has been no characterization on the fabrication tolerances of these two fabrication methods for the generation of microfluidic master molds and the effects of these two fabrication modalities on microfluidic performance. In this study, we sought to fill in a gap in microfabrication literature by characterizing fabrication tolerances of 3D printed and micromilled microfluidic master molds using VINSE鈥檚 stylus profilometer. We proceeded to then test the effects of fabrication tolerances of each fabrication modality using two microfluidic devices, a low-flow splitting microfluidic device, and a flow-focusing microfluidic device for generating gelatin microspheres.
Our results demonstrated that 3D printed microfluidic master molds had a significantly rougher surface finish when compared to the micromilled aluminum master molds. Our low-flow splitting microfluidic assay showed no significant differences in performance between microfluidic chips cast from the 3D printed or micromilled master molds. Our flow-focusing microfluidic device did show a significant difference in the generation of gelatin microspheres between 3D printed and micromilled master molds. Overall, we hope this study serves as a practical guide for researchers when deciding which fabrication modality will be appropriate for their microfluidic applications.
Authors: Daniel Chavarria, Immanuel Ojetola, Maria L. Russotti, Alexis K. Yates and Ethan S. Lippmann
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