Team:Newcastle/Notebook/Lab/Microfluidics

Microfluidics Diary

This page documents the wet lab experiments relating to our microfluidic devices. Be sure to look at our library of frequently used protocols that are referenced from this page with any amendments.

26/07/16

Ollie and Jake spent the morning with Dr Lucy Eland from the ICOS Research Group, who showed them how to manufacture microfluidic devices from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) gel . These would be useful in achieving the required temperature change to activate our heat-mediated devices in a more controlled manner, due to the very small volume of bacterial culture in the internal chamber.

28/07/16

We spent the morning testing the heating effect of varying electrical current on LB broth, determining how the time taken to achieve a 15C temperature change changed depending on the amount of current supplied. This experiment demonstrated a large change in heating over a very small range of currents, and informed our future designs by providing the optimum current for a steady increase in temperature without boiling the broth in the chamber or failing to achieve the required temperature within a reasonable amount of time (12mA).

02/08/16

Lucy showed us how to properly prepare the PDMS gel devices for lab use, refining their shape using scalpels and punching holes for electrode insertion. We then bonded the chambers to glass slides for later integration into the breadboard kit. Ollie then began work on a mounting piece to receive the slide and consulted with Dr John Hedley to see if there were any cheaper alternatives to the lab standard platinum wire, which there were not. Jake and Josh conducted conductivity experiments with salt solutions of varying concentration, which unfortunately did not provide replicable results due to copper buildup at the anode.