Overview

In the preparation of hydrogel micromotors, in order to achieve an integrated solution characterized by C.E.P. (Controllable, Efficient, Precise) performance, we ultimately adopted a microfluidic approach and collaborated with Dxfluidics to design the microfluidic chip.

Details

To fabricate calcium alginate hydrogel microspheres with calcium carbonate coated on one side and yeast coated on the other, we referred to the design of Janus-structured, magnetically oriented microspheres reported by Zhao et al. (2009) ¹. The figure shows the microfluidic chip channel design.

Figure 1: Microfluidic chip channel design.
Inlet 1: soybean oil containing 1% Span 80;
Inlet 2: 2% sodium alginate solution;
Inlet 3: 1.5% sodium alginate solution containing 10 wt% nano-CaCO₃;
Inlet 4: 1% CaCl₂ solution;
Inlet 5: soybean oil containing 1% Span 80.

Meanwhile, we also fabricated one SU-8 mold and two PDMS chips with a thickness of 3 mm, punched with 0.5 mm inlets/outlets, and bonded to 1 mm glass substrates.

References