Superhydrophobic treatment of PDMS-based microfluidic devices using CO2 laser ablation

• Published in: Microfluidics and nanofluidics 2024-02, Vol.28 (2), p.8, Article 8
• Main Authors: Yajun, Zhang, Jingji, Liu, Xie, Yumeng, Liang, Kunming, Zhang, Zhe, Yang, Chen, Yiqiang, Fan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ablation; Analytical Chemistry; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide lasers; Contact angle; Engineering; Engineering Fluid Dynamics; Hydrophobic surfaces; Hydrophobicity; Laser ablation; Lasers; Microfluidic devices; Microfluidics; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Polymethylmethacrylate; Surface treatment
• ISSN: 1613-4982; 1613-4990
• DOI: 10.1007/s10404-023-02698-5

This study proposed a two-step simple method for rapid superhydrophobic surface modification of PDMS for PDMS-based microfluidics. A laser-patterned PMMA plate was used as the mask for the following selective CO 2 laser surface treatment on PDMS. The water contact angle, SEM and ATR-FTIR analysis were conducted for the characterization of the proposed superhydrophobic surface modification method for PDMS. The result shows that the water contact angle on the modified PDMS surface reaches around 160° with the laser power of 12 W and with a scanning speed of 60 mm/s. This method aims to develop a faster, easier, and low-cost method for selective superhydrophobic modification method for PDMS-based microfluidic devices. The proposed method could have wide applications potentials in the microfluidics field, especially for PDMS-based droplet microfluidics.