• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.2 s.257
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• pp.159-166
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• 2007

Mixing between two or more reagents is one of important processes in biochemical microfluidics. In efficient micromixer design, it is essential to analyze flow pattern and evaluate mixing efficiency with good precision. In this work, mixing efficiency for Y-channel micromixer is measured by fluorescence intensity using LIF(Laser Induced Fluorescence) Confocal Microscope. The Y-channel micromixers are fabricated with polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS) and those are bonded to glass plate through Plasma bonding. Nile Blue A is injected into the micromixer as a fluorescence dye for measuring of fluorescence intensity by He/Ne laser. For visualization of the flow pattern, dynamic image capturing is carried out using CAM scope. For the comparison with computer simulation, modified SIMPLE algorithm for incompressible flow equation is solved for the same geometry as in the experiment. Throughout the experiments and computer simulation, accurate mixing efficiency evaluation process for a PDMS Y-channel micromixer is established.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.377-377
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• 2007

A simplified integration process including packaging is presented, which enables the realization of the portable fluorescence detection system. A fluorescence detection microchip system consisting of an integrated PIN photodiode, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) as the light source, an interference filter, and a microchannel was developed. The on-chip fluorescence detector fabricated by poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-based packaging had thin-film structure. A silicon-based integrated PIN photo diode combined with an optical filter removed the background noise, which was produced by an excitation source, on the same substrate. The active area of the finger-type PIN photo diode was extended to obtain a higher detection sensitivity of fluorescence. The sensitivity and the limit of detection (LOD S/N = 3) of the system were $0.198\;nA/{\mu}M$ and $10\;{\mu}M$, respectively.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.551-555
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• 2010

Electrowetting is a versatile tool to handle tiny droplets and forms a backbone of digital microfluidics. Numerical analysis is necessary to fully understand the dynamics of electrowetting, especially in designing electrowetting-based devices, such as liquid lenses and reflective displays. We developed a numerical method to analyze the general contact-line problems, incorporating dynamic contact angle models. The method is based on the conservative level set method to capture the interface of two fluids without loss of mass. We applied the method to the analysis of spreading process of a sessile droplet for step input voltages and oscillation of the droplet for alternating input voltages in electrowetting. The result was compared with experimental data. It is shown that contact line friction significantly affects the contact line motion and the oscillation amplitude. The pinning process of contact line was well represented by including the hysteresis effect in the contact angle models. In level set method, in the mean time, material properties are made to change smoothly across an interface of two materials with different properties by introducing an interpolation or smoothing scheme. So far, the weighted arithmetic mean (WAM) method has been exclusively adopted in level set method, without complete assessment for its validity. We viscosity, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and permittivity, can be an alternative. I.e., the WHM gives more accurate results than the WAM method in certain circumstances. The interpolation scheme should be selected considering various characteristics including type of property, ratio of property of two fluids, geometry of interface, and so on.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.10 s.241
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• pp.1298-1306
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• 2005

In this paper, Part II, we realized the Serpentine Laminating Micromirer (SLM) which was proposed in the accompanying paper, Part I, by means of the injection molding process in mass production. In the SLM, the higher level of chaotic mixing can be achieved by combining two general chaotic mixing mechanisms of splitting/recombination and chaotic advection by the successive arrangement of 'F'-shape mixing units in two layers. Mold inserts for the injection molding process of the SLM were fabricated by SU-8 photolithography and nickel electroplating. The SLM was realized by injection molding of COC (cyclic olefin copolymer) with the fabricated mold inserts and thermal bonding of two injection molded COC substrates. To compare the mixing performance, a T-type micromixer was also fabricated. Mixing performances of micromixers were experimentally characterized in terms of an average mixing color intensity of a pH indicator, phenolphthalein. Experimental results show that the SLM has much better mixing performance than the I-type micromixer and chaotic mixing was successfully achieved from the SLM over the wide range of Reynolds number (Re). The chaotic micromixer, SLM proposed in this study, could be easily integrated in Micro-Total-Analysis- System , Lab-on-a-Chip and so on.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.738-745
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• 2015

The catalytic exchange of hydrogen isotopes between hydrogen and water has been known to be a very useful process for the separation of tritium from tritiated water. For the process, a highly active hydrophobic catalyst is needed. This study provides an effective fabrication method of size-controlled platinum/poly[styrene-divinylbenzene-tri(propylene glycol) diacrylate] [Pt/poly(SDB-TPGDA)] hydrophobic catalyst beads with a narrow size distribution. Platinum nanoparticles were prepared by ${\gamma}$-ray-induced reduction in the aqueous phase first, and then uniformly dispersed in SDB-TPGDA comonomer after the hydrophobization of platinum nanoparticles with alkylamine stabilizers. The porous Pt/poly(SDB-TPGDA) hydrophobic catalyst beads were synthesized by the UV-initiated polymerization of the mixture droplets prepared in a capillary-based microfluidic system. The size of as-prepared catalyst beads can be controlled in the range of $200-1,000{\mu}m$ by adjusting the flow rate of dispersed and continuous phases, as well as the viscosity of the continuous phase. Sorbitan monooleate and cyclohexanol were used as coporogens to control the porosities of the catalyst beads.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.277.1-277.1
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• 2013

Molecular diagnostics consists of three processes, which are a sample pretreatment, a nucleic acid amplification, and an amplicon detection. Among three components, sample pretreatment is an important process in that it can increase the limit of detection by purifying nucleic acid in biological sample from contaminants that may interfere with the downstream genetic analysis such as nucleic acid amplification and detection. To achieve point-of-care virus detection system, the sample pretreatment process needs to be simple, rapid, and automatic. However, the commercial RNA extraction kits such as Rneasy (Qiagen) or MagnaPure (Roche) kit are highly labor-intensive and time-consuming due to numerous manual steps, and so it is not adequate for the on-site sample preparation. Herein, we have developed a rotary microfluidic system to extract and purify the RNA without necessity of external mechanical syringe pumps to allow flow control using microfluidic technology. We designed three reservoirs for sample, washing buffer, and elution buffer which were connected with different dimensional microfluidic channels. By controlling RPM, we could dispense a RNA sample solution, a washing buffer, and an elution buffer successively, so that the RNA was captured in the sol-gel solid phase, purified, and eluted in the downstream. Such a novel rotary sample preparation system eliminates some complicated hardwares and human intervention providing the opportunity to construct a fully integrated genetic analysis microsystem.

• Clean Technology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.291-296
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• 2021

Recently, there has been increasing demand for advancing photocatalytic techniques that are capable of the efficient removal of organic pollutants in water. TiO₂, a representative photocatalytic material, has been commonly used as an effective photocatalyst, but it is rather expensive and an alternative is required that will fulfill the requirements of both high performing photocatalytic activities and cost-effectiveness. In this work, ZnO, which is more cost effective than TiO₂, was synthesized by using a microreactor-assisted nanomaterials (MAN) process. The process enabled a continuous production of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) with a flower-like structure with high uniformity. In order to resolve the limited light absorption of ZnO arising from its large band gap, Ag NPs were uniformly decorated on the flower-like ZnO surface by using the MAN process. The plasmonic effect of Ag NPs led to a broadening of the absorption range toward visible wavelengths. Ag NPs also helped inhibit the electron-hole recombination by drawing electrons generated from the light absorption of the flower-like ZnO NPs. As a result, the Ag-ZnO nanocomposites showed improved photocatalytic activities compared with the flower-like ZnO NPs. The photocatalytic activities were evaluated through the degradation of methylene blue (MB) solution. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) confirmed the successful synthesis of Ag-ZnO nanocomposites with high uniformity. Ag-ZnO nanocomposites synthesized via the MAN process offer the potential for cost-effective and scalable production of next-generation photocatalytic materials.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.9 s.90
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• pp.667-672
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• 2006

Agglutination is one of the most commonly employed reactions in clinical diagnosis. In this paper, we have designed and fabricated nickel mold insert for injection molding of a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip for the purpose of the efficient detection of agglutination. In the presented microfluidic lab-on-a-chip, two inlets for sample blood and reagent, flow guiding microchannels, improved serpentine laminating micromixer(ISLM) and reaction microwells are fully integrated. The ISLM, recently developed by our group, can highly improve mixing of the sample blood and reagent in the microchannel, thereby enhancing reaction of agglutinogens and agglutinins. The reaction microwell was designed to contain large volume of about $25{\mu}l$ of the mixture of sample blood and reagent. The result of agglutination in the reaction microwell could be determined by means of the level of the light transmission. To achieve the cost-effectiveness, the microfluidic lab-on-a-chip was realized by the injection molding of COC(cyclic olefin copolymer) and thermal bonding of two injection molded COC substrates. To define microfeatures in the microfluidic lab-on-a-chip precisely, the nickel mold inserts of lab-on-a-chip for the injection molding were fabricated by combining the UV photolithography with a negative photoresist SU-8 and the nickel electroplating process. The microfluidic lab-on-a-chip developed in this study could be applied to various clinical diagnosis based on agglutination.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.106-112
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• 2014

Here, we demonstrated the optimum design of pillar microstructure for efficient microdroplet merging. The microfluidic device mainly consisted of programmable microvalves and pillar microstructures. Based on the system, aqueous droplets were continuously generated at T-junction using actuating of integrated programmable microvalaves under the immiscible continuous fluid (mineral oil containing 0.5 wt% Span 80). The principle of merging process depended on the competitive correlation of hydraulic pressure of continuous phase and Laplace pressure of the droplet. We found that the design of the micropillars controls above two pressures. Finally, it was demonstrated that the microfluidic system could be able to efficient biochemical reaction. We expect that the microfluidic system is useful analytical or reaction tools in fundamental science, biotechnology, and chemical engineering.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.472-477
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• 2015

This study presents modified microfluidic picoinjector combined Faraday moat with silver nanoparticle electrode to increase electrical efficiency and fabrication yield. We perform simple dropping procedure of silver nanoparticles near the picoinjection channel, which solve complicate fabrication process of electrode deposition onto the microfluidic picoinjector. Based on this approach, the microfluidic picoinjector can be reliably operated at 180 V while conventional Faraday moat usually have performed above 260 V. Thus, we can reduce the operation voltage and increase safety. Furthermore, the microfluidic picoinjector is able to precisely control injection volume from 7.5 pL to 27.5 pL. We believe that the microfluidic picoinjector will be useful platform for microchemical reaction, biological assay, drug screening, cell culture device, and toxicology.