Open Microfluidics

Open microfluidics or open-surface is becoming fundamental in scientific domains such as biotechnology, biology and space. First, such systems and devices based on open microfluidics make use of capillary forces to move fluids, without any need for external energy. Second, the “openness” of the flow facilitates the accessibility to the liquid in biotechnology and biology, and reduces the weight in space applications.

This book has been conceived to give the reader the fundamental basis of open microfluidics. It covers successively

• The theory of spontaneous capillary flow, with the general conditions for spontaneous capillary flow, and the dynamic aspects of such flows.
• The formation of capillary filaments which are associated to small contact angles and sharp grooves.
• The study of capillary flow in open rectangular, pseudo-rectangular and trapezoidal open microchannels.
• The dynamics of open capillary flows in grooves with a focus on capillary resistors. The case of very viscous liquids is analyzed.
• An analysis of suspended capillary flows: such flows move in suspended channels devoid of top cover and bottom plate. Their accessibility is reinforced, and such systems are becoming fundamental in biology.
• An analysis of “rails” microfluidics, which are flows that move in channels devoid of side walls. This geometry has the advantage to be compatible with capillary networks, which are now of great interest in biotechnology, for molecular detection for example.
• Paper-based microfluidics where liquids wick flat paper matrix. Applications concern bioassays such as point of care devices (POC).
• Thread-based microfluidics is a new domain of investigation. It is seeing presently many new developments in the domain of separation and filtration, and opens the way to smart bandages and tissue engineering.

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The book is intended to cover the theoretical aspects of open microfluidics, experimental approaches, and examples of application.

Jean Berthier is a scientist at the CEA/LETI and teaches at the University of Grenoble. He received an engineering diploma from the Institut National Polytechnique, and an MS in mathematics from the University of Grenoble, France. He is presently involved in the development of microdevices for liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), flow focusing devices (FFD) for bio-encapsulation of live cells, microfluidic resonators for high sensitivity biodetection and numerical methods for the prediction of droplets and interfaces behavior in microsystems.
He is the first author of the book The Physics of Microdroplets (Wiley-Scrivener 2012).

Kenneth Brakke is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in Mathematics from Princeton University, in the field of Geometric Measure Theory. Since 1988 he has written and maintained his freely-available Surface Evolver software, which shows computer models of liquid surfaces. He is the second author of the book The Physics of Microdroplets (Wiley-Scrivener 2012).

Erwin Berthier is the VP of R&D of Tasso, Inc, a biotechnology startup that is developing blood sample collection and analysis technologies based on open microfluidic concepts as well as an affiliate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington. He has received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he became an expert in user-centered microfluidic technologies. His believes that technologies must be made simpler to disseminate, be widely adopted, and find killer applications.