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Digital Microfluidics
herrd0kt0r writes "A brilliant team of researches at Duke University have been working on digital microfluidics, with potential applications in biotech labs-on-a-chip, optical routers/switches, wavelength division multiplexers and the like. Essentially, this team has developed a solid state device capable of moving very small drops of fluid over very small distances with very little power. From their website they remark that "[m]icrofluidic processing is performed on unit-sized packets of fluid which are transported, stored, mixed, reacted, or analyzed in a discrete manner using a standard set of basic instructions."
Their site includes eight .mpgs demonstrating their microfluidics tech in real-time. Be sure to take a gander at this video showing programmable flow of droplets as well as this one showing droplet splitting and formation."
im thinking, some blacklight reflective liquid, on the top of the case, moving around in different patterns. Or coat the top of the whole case with a mapped out electirc grid, and you make it so whatever shape you want it to draw (controlled by the computer) it does! it could look pretty bad ass if you did a good job...oh and you didn't move your case.
"an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind"
this whole shebang about microdroplet formation and movement is especially incredible when considering lab-on-a-chip applications for the biotech industry.
one of the biggest problems with current solutions is the difficulty in utilizing small samples of blood/fluid. the solid-state approach of this team is great in that there are, by definition, NO MOVING PARTS! nothin to break down, and nothin to shrink down either. so you can keep things puny. the fluid volume in these experiments are in the _nanoliter_ range. and they have demonstrated their ability to split and reform droplets.
so imagine this: you have a limited quantity of blood to analyze, and wanna run a bazillion tests. no sweat. with this tech, you can suck off puny portions at a time! you can move them around however you'd like as well, to whatever assays you'd like to run.
the team has also demonstrated excellent droplet mixing results as well. why is this important? well, with fluid volumes that small, it is difficult to mix solutions. their electrowetting approach has yielded results that show excellent mixing. this is good for labs-on-a-chip as well, as you may need to mix different things together for certain assays.
the potential for this kind of technology is pretty staggering. very small. very little power. no moving parts. use em for switches of many sorts! or hell, did you check out the video where they move the drop at over 200 hertz?!
HOLY SHIZNIT!
that's fast! eesh! but screw all this serious stuff. i think we can _all_ enjoy the first video showing the droplet performing humping maneuvers. aww jeah.
Wow. I remember reading about fluidic processing in the late 1960s. Must've gone from the "valve" stage to to the IC (Integrated Conduit ?) ;-) since then. Hey, check out this fluidic amplifier ... not very micro back then eh ?
Man that must really take persistence working on a tech bywater for 40 years waiting for it to come good. Mind you I think I remember even back then there being real world applications for this ... slow processing in hostile environments where electronics would get fried etc ... I think from memory it used the Coanda Effect or something for switching fluid streams. And there were adds in New Scientist for years afterwards selling DIY fluidics kits.
Well maybe at last its time has come ...
Bitter and proud of it.