Capillary / centrifugal microfluidics

In capillary/centrifugal microfluidics, liquid plugs of defined volume are moved through microchannel networks without any pump.

Instead, fluid control is achieved by (1) tuning the wetting properties of the channels and (2) spinning the microfluidic chip to benefit from centrifugal forces. Capillary and siphon valves may guide the flows in a timely manner. They can be unlocked simply by changing the rotation speed.

Working with controlled microliter volumes and without any pump is ideal to implement portable assays, especially for the point-of-care diagnostic market. We collaborate with several belgian companies in order to develop these assays in a microfluidic format.

Among others, we developed a strategy to manipulate liquid plugs at the nanoliter scale without microfluidic valves. We implemented this strategy in various centrifugal systems, including with conventional lab centrifuges.

Publications:

• A. Gholizadeh, G. Mazzucchelli and T. Gilet, Flipping: a valve-free strategy to control fluid flows in centrifugal microfluidic systems, Sensors and Actuators: B. Chemical 412, 135778 (2024)

Contact @ µFL: Ali Gholizadeh, Margaux Ska, Tristan Gilet

Collaborations: Center for Protein Engineering (Bernard Joris), MSLab (Gabriel Mazzucchelli), GIGA Stem Cells (Laurent Nguyen), Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc (Sophie Gohy)

Industrial collaborations: Unisensor, Hologics, Coris BioConcept, Sirris

Funding: Walloon Region (Cwality 2014, Win2wal 2019, Win2wal 2020, Win2wal 2023)