Rapid Prototyping of Moulds for PDMS-based Microfluidic Chips

To shorten the production time for PDMS-moulds by additive manufacturing (AM) several 3D printers have been investigated in comparison to standard micro-milling by producing benchmark structures. These are evaluated regarding their shape accuracy, the transparency of the casted PDMS which is linked...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current directions in biomedical engineering 2021-10, Vol.7 (2), p.255-259
Main Authors: Schmidt-Speicher, Leona M., Mellert, Tobias, Hurtado Rivera, Andrea C., Länge, Kerstin, Ahrens, Ralf, Guber, Andreas E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Additive Manufacturing
Lab-on-a-Chip
Microfluidic Systems
Plant-on-a-Chip
Rapid Prototyping
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Summary:To shorten the production time for PDMS-moulds by additive manufacturing (AM) several 3D printers have been investigated in comparison to standard micro-milling by producing benchmark structures. These are evaluated regarding their shape accuracy, the transparency of the casted PDMS which is linked to the surface quality of the mould, and the production time until the moulds are ready to use. Even though the additively manufactured moulds showed significantly better surface quality and shorter production time, the necessary shape accuracy for non-square-structures or structures with < 250 μm edge length could not be achieved due to limiting factors like nozzle diameter, size of the digital micromirror device or spot size of the LCD-panel.
ISSN:2364-5504
2364-5504
DOI:10.1515/cdbme-2021-2065