A Printed Circuit Board Based Microfluidic System for Point-of-care Diagnostics Applications

We propose an alternative approach for fabricating microfluidic devices by using printed circuit board (PCB) as a substrate to produce high precision, highly integrated microfluidic systems. Driven by consumer electronics industry, the PCB manufacturing has reached a high level of maturity and precision, enabling the production of sophisticated electronic substrates at high-resolution and low cost. Lacking the integration capability in current microfluidic technology, PCB makes an ideal platform for producing microfluidics for lab-on-a-chip applications. We report the development of new techniques to integrate microfluidics with PCBs. Isotachophoresis was performed as a demonstration to employ such devices for point-ofcare applications.