Microfluidic vapor-diffusion barrier for pressure reduction in fully closed PCR modules
19.12.2014
Czilwik G, Schwarz I, Keller M, Wadle S, Zehnle S, von Stetten F, Mark D, Zengerle R, Paust N.
Lab Chip. 2015;15(4):1084-91
Microfluidic systems for PCR should be fully closed to avoid vapor loss and to exclude the risk of contaminating the laboratory environment. In closed systems however, the high temperatures of up to 95°C associated with PCR cause high overpressures up to 100 kPa. Such high overpressures pose challenges to the mechanical stability of microfluidic chips as well as to the liquid handling in integrated sample-to-answer systems. In this work, we drastically reduce the pressure increase by integrating a microchannel that serves as a vapor-diffusion barrier (VDB).
