Engineering Commons^™

Development Of A Multi-Use Modular Microfluidic Platform Using 3d Printing, Carson Emeigh

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Microfluidic lab-on-a-chip (LoC) technology has driven numerous innovations due to their ability to perform laboratory-scale experiments on a single chip using microchannels. Although LoC technology has been innovative, it still suffers from limitations related to its fabrication and design flexibility. Typical LoC fabrication, with photolithography, is time consuming, expensive, and inflexible. To overcome the limitations of LoC devices, modular microfluidic platforms have been developed where multiple microfluidic modules, each with a specific function or group of functions, can be combined on a single platform. Modular microfluidics have overcome some of the limitations of LoC devices, but currently, their fabrication is …

The Effect Of Proteome And Lipidome On The Behavior Of Membrane Bound Systems In Thermally-Assisted Acoustophoresis, Elnaz Mirtaheri

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Changes in the biomechanical properties of cells accompanying the development of various pathological conditions have been increasingly reported as biomarkers for various diseases, including cancers. In cancer cells, the membrane properties have been altered compared to their healthy counterparts primarily due to proteomic and lipidomic dysregulations conferred by the underlying pathology. The separation and selective recovery of these cells or extracellular vesicles secreted from such cells is of high diagnostic and prognostic value.

In this dissertation, the research builds on thermally-assisted acoustophoresis technique which was developed in our laboratory for the separation of vesicles of the same size, charge and …

Roll-To-Roll Pilot Line For Large-Scale Manufacturing Of Microfluidic Devices, Martin Smolka, Anja Haase, Ursula Palfinger, Dieter Nees, Ladislav Kuna, Jan Hesse, Barbara Stadlober, Sascha. Geidel, Jörg Nestler, Nikolaus Ladenhauf, Andoni Rodriguez, Florian Hasenöhrl, Martin Eibelhuber, Max Sonnleitner, Guggi Kofod, Dan Kofoed, Jan Kafka, Isbaal Ramos, Manuel W. Thesen, Mirko Lohse, Ana Ayerdi, Nerea Briz

Single-use Technologies II: Bridging Polymer Science to Biotechnology Applications

Roll-to-roll (R2R) technologies with roller-based nanoimprinting methods enable manufacturing of highly cost-effective and large-scale sheets of flexible polymer film with precise structures on a micro- and nanoscale 1. Areas that can benefit strongly from such large scale technologies are microfluidics, biosensors, and lab-on-chip products for point of care diagnostics, drug discovery and food control. Here, R2R fabrication could greatly reduce production costs and increase manufacturing capacity with respect to currently used products. A pilot line with this technology is investigated in the European Horizon 2020 project R2R Biofluidics and its capabilities are tested on two Demonstrators: - Demonstrator 1: In-vitro …

Jet Bounce In Low Gravity, Caleb Turner

Undergraduate Research & Mentoring Program

Liquid jets rebound (‘bounce’) from superhydrophobic surfaces when they impinge at oblique angles. We call this interesting phenomena ‘jet bounce’ and in this work we investigate the phenomena at large length scales in a reduced gravitational environment. For example, for water at Reynolds numbers 0 < Re < 3500 and surface normal Weber numbers 0 < We < 60 we characterize the response of the jets on the hydrophobic surface in the brief 2.1s micro-gravity environment achieved using a drop tower. It is observed that by varying jet velocity, flow rate, jet diameter, and incident angle we observe up to four distinct regimes of behavior. The various regimes may be targeted for specific applications and we demonstrate a variety of unique jet bounce behaviors for applications such as no-touch, no-contact fluid-thermal transport for spacecraft unit operations such as contaminated water processing, device cooling, and cryogenic fluids transport and management.

Stable jet bounce from small diameter jet ≈ 1 mm and low impact angle. Characterizing Reynolds number ≈ 900 and normal Weber number ≤ 10 allow jet bounce to rebound in non-destructive behavior.

Puddle Jumping: Spontaneous Ejection Of Large Liquid Droplets From Hydrophobic Surfaces During Drop Tower Tests, Babek Attari, Mark M. Weislogel, Andrew Paul Wollman, Yongkang Chen, Trevor Snyder

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Large droplets and puddles jump spontaneously from sufficiently hydrophobicsurfaces during routine drop tower tests. The simple low-cost passive mechanism can in turn be used as an experimental device to investigate dynamic droplet phenomena for drops up to 104 times larger than their normal terrestrial counterparts. We provide and/or confirm quick and qualitative design guides for such “drop shooters” as employed in drop tower tests including relationships to predict droplet ejection durations and velocities as functions of drop volume, surface texture, surface contour, wettability pattern, and fluid properties including contact angle. The latter is determined via profile image comparisons with numerical …

More Investigations In Capillary Fluidics Using A Drop Tower, Andrew Paul Wollman, Mark M. Weislogel, Brentley M. Wiles, Donald Pettit, Trevor Snyder

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A variety of contemplative demonstrations concerning intermediate-to-large length scale capillary fluidic phenomena were made possible by the brief weightless environment of a drop tower (Wollman and Weislogel in Exp Fluids 54(4):1, 2013). In that work, capillarity-driven flows leading to unique spontaneous droplet ejections, bubble ingestions, and multiphase flows were introduced and discussed. Such efforts are continued herein. The spontaneous droplet ejection phenomena (auto-ejection) is reviewed and demonstrated on earth as well as aboard the International Space Station. This technique is then applied to novel low-g droplet combustion where soot tube structures are created in the wakes of burning drops. …

Monolithic Optofluidic Ring Resonator Lasers Created By Femtosecond Laser Nanofabrication, Hengky Chandrahalim, Qiushu Chen, Ali A. Said, Mark Dugan, Xudong Fan

Faculty Publications

We designed, fabricated, and characterized a monolithically integrated optofluidic ring resonator laser that is mechanically, thermally, and chemically robust. The entire device, including the ring resonator channel and sample delivery microfluidics, was created in a block of fused-silica glass using a 3-dimensional femtosecond laser writing process. The gain medium, composed of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) dissolved in quinoline, was flowed through the ring resonator. Lasing was achieved at a pump threshold of approximately 15 μJ/mm². Detailed analysis shows that the Q-factor of the optofluidic ring resonator is 3.3 × 10⁴, which is limited by both solvent …

Capillary-Driven Flows Along Rounded Interior Corners, Yongkang Chen, Mark M. Weislogel, Cory L. Nardin

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The problem of low-gravity isothermal capillary flow along interior corners that are rounded is revisited analytically in this work. By careful selection of geometric length scales and through the introduction of a new geometric scaling parameter Tc, the Navier–Stokes equation is reduced to a convenient∼O(1) form for both analytic and numeric solutions for all values of corner half-angle α and corner roundedness ratio λ for perfectly wetting fluids. The scaling and analysis of the problem captures much of the intricate geometric dependence of the viscous resistance and significantly reduces the reliance on numerical data compared with several previous solution methods …

Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramics For Micro-Fluidics, John Youngsman, Brian Marx, Martin Schimpf, Scott Wolter, Jeff Glass, Amy Moll

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The miniaturization of analytical instruments and packaging of novel sensors is an area that has attracted significant research interest and offers many opportunities for product commercialization. Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC) is a materials system composed of alumina and glass in an organic binder. LTCC is a good choice for sensor development because of the ease of incorporating features in the ‘green’ or unfired state such as electrical traces, fluidic pathways and passive electrical components. After a firing cycle, what remains is a robust, monolithic device with features embedded in the package. In order for LTCC to be a successful …