Title: Contactless manipulation of mixed phase fluids in liquid crystal polymer microtubes assisted with light-driven vortex

Author: Yao Lu, Lang Qin, Quan Liu, Zichuan Li, Weijia Zhang, Chongyu Zhu*, Yanlei Yu*

Journal: NPG Asia Materials, 2022, 14, 73

Abstract:

Smart channels that manipulate liquid motion by anisotropic shape changes represent a promising candidate to construct microfluidics for biochemical analysis. However, the existing systems fail to provide a platform for solid exchange mediums to interact with multiple liquid phases, which is a universal technique to effectively extract, enrich, and precisely detect biomarkers. Herein, a combined photo/magnetic control strategy of mixed phase fluids, which integrates the contactless operations of suspending, depositing, and even separating, is reported for the first time based on a trilayer microtube consisting of a flexible supporting layer, photodeformable liquid crystal polymer, and hydrophilic blocking layer. The asymmetric photodeformation of the liquid crystal polymer generates an internal vortex in the microtube to homogenously disperse solid exchange mediums into various aqueous moving droplets and to enable efficient purification and enrichment of the target biomarkers. A newly constructed homemade portable protein analyzer guided by the combined photo/magnetic control strategy features the advantages of a short detection time (20 min), trace sample consumption (5 μL), and a low detection limit (1 μg/mL).

论文链接：https://www.nature.com/articles/s41427-022-00424-1#Abs1

PDF下载：Contactless manipulation of mixed phase fluids in liquid crystal polymer microtubes assisted with light-driven vortex.pdf

本文利用含有线型液晶聚合物、EVA和亲水涂层的三层微管制备了一款光/磁便携式蛋白质分析仪，通过不对称形变产生的拉普拉斯压差和涡流实现对蛋白质的悬浮、沉积和分离，进而完成提取和检测。该分析仪可在短时间内（20 min）、微量样品消耗（5 μL）和低检测限（1 μg/mL）的条件下对复杂样品中的各种蛋白质进行纯化、富集和检测。