Micro- and nanofluidics
MeBioS Biosensors: Micro- and nanofluidics Research
Micro- and nanofluidics are the science and technology of manipulating (mainly) liquids on the micro- and nanoscale respectively. It's an emerging topic that has rapidly gain interest in the last decade. The liquids are controlled by specially designed systems which are divided in two classes, namely continous and discrete microfluidics. Both classes are distinguished from each other by the way liquids are manipulated.
Continuous microfluidics transports, mixes and dispenses liquids by controlling the liquid flow in channels. In microfluidics, these channels have typical dimensions of a few hundred nanometers while in nanofluidics the dimensions go as low as a few hundred nanometers. Both geometries are characterized by their own phenomena which are used for a whole range of applications like separation, fast reaction kinetics, ultrasensitive detection, ...
In digital microfluidics, the liquid is divided into droplets which are also transported, mixed and dispensed. There are two ways the droplets can be handled: like its continuous counterpart where droplets are confined in microchannels or by a sandwich type of device where movements in two directions are possible because there's no restriction of channel walls. In both cases, the liquid is 'packed' into discrete droplets and therefore this kind of fluid manipulation shows a very good resemblance to the conventional laboratory environment.
Applications
One of the main areas of application of micro- and nanofluidics are the analytical applications which are also the main interest of the MeBioS Biosensor group. By manipulating very small amounts of liquid, analytical diagnostics are developped with great sensitivity together with a drastically reduced analysis time in a high-throughput context. Generally, the term 'Lab-on-a-Chip' is used for this kind of miniaturized analytical systems.
Mathematical modeling
Development of a new microfluidic device involves design, analysis and optimization of the different components and systems. This requires understanding of the fundamental physical mechanisms associated with transport of various analyte, cascade of enzymatic reactions and fluid flow. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) play a vital role in developing innovative microfluidic device for different application. However, full numerical simulations are not always suitable for designing complex microfluidic especially for iterative design process. In this regard we develop reduced order models (ROM) with high level of accuracy and efficiency for multiple measurements. These models are also used to design multiplexed enzyme assay in a lab-on-a-chip system for multi-analyte analysis in automated fashion. Parameters are then quickly optimized.
The Biosensor group of MeBioS has now several years of experience in the field of micro- and nanofluidics, both theoretically and practically. Because of this, our experiments are supported by using numerical simulations which increases our knowledge of the mechanisms behind the processes. We're also closely involved with the research group of prof. B. Nicolaï where transport phenomena on the micro and nanolevel are studied and modelled.
