{"id":129234,"date":"2020-12-08T20:56:48","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T17:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/research-team-invents-novel-light-controlled-contamination-free-fluidic-processor\/"},"modified":"2020-12-08T20:56:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T17:56:48","slug":"research-team-invents-novel-light-controlled-contamination-free-fluidic-processor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/research-team-invents-novel-light-controlled-contamination-free-fluidic-processor\/","title":{"rendered":"#Research team invents novel light-controlled contamination-free fluidic processor"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Research team invents novel light-controlled contamination-free fluidic processor<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\n Demonstration of the\u00a0light-controlled contamination-free fluidic processor. Credit: The University of Hong Kong
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A mechanical engineering research team at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has invented a novel light-controlled, contamination-free fluidic processor, which can serve as a useful tool to greatly reduce the risk of infection of front-line medical workers in testing virus or bacteria in big pandemics like the current COVID-19 pandemic, and to minimize the risk of contamination during the process.<\/p>\n

The new technology<\/a> has been published in Science<\/a> Advances<\/i> in an article titled “Photopyroelectric Microfluidics,” co-authored by graduate student Mr Wei Li, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Xin Tang and Chair Professor Liqiu Wang at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, HKU.<\/p>\n

Precision manipulation of various liquids is essential in many fields. The team innovatively uses light as a stimulating force, allowing contactless manipulations in moving, merging, dispensing and splitting liquids, on a specifically designed photo-responsive platform. The platform is non-toxic and non-sticky to all fluids, making it an ideal contamination-free fluidic processor.<\/p>\n

Professor Wang said the first app<\/a>lications of the new technology can be in biomedical testing and diagnosis, with the aim of lowering the risk of contamination and infection in the process.<\/p>\n

“Testing infectious viruses and bacteria is highly risky, sometimes even fatal. A blood droplet from an Ebola patient can infect medical workers through the skin. For diagnosis, media<\/a>l workers have to crash, filter and purify a patient’s blood sample to obtain the virus’s genetic materials. This series<\/a> of operations, very often in a fluidic medium, is highly infectious. Moreover, fluids stick to surfaces, which will contaminate containers and handling tools, causing potential dangers if the medical wastes are not properly managed.” He said.<\/p>\n

The newly invented fluidic processor uses light as a stimulating force, allowing contactless manipulations in moving, merging, dispensing and splitting liquids, on a specifically designed photo-responsive platform. Credit: The University of Hong Kong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to WHO reports, healthcare workers are 21 to 32 times more likely to be infected with Ebola and nearly 14% of COVID-19 reported cases are among healthcare workers. Moreover, it is estimated that disposable plastics worth US$20 billion are consumed in testing annually. The used plastics are left with potentially infectious or toxic residues and hazardous wastes that cost another US$10 billion to handle.<\/p>\n

“We hope the newly-invented technique can reduce and even replace the usage of disposable plastics in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. The light-control device outperforms its electrical counterpart in the market in terms of operational precision and convenience, whereas the cost is only one-hundredth of it.” Professor Wang said.
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The key technology of the light-controlled fluidic processor is a two-layer photo-responsive platform. With a thickness of only 2mm, it is portable and easy to handle. Its superomniphobic surface interfaces fluids in a frictionless manner, like dew drops rolling on a lotus leaf; and a photothermal pyroelectric layer, which senses the light stimuli and converts it into a force that move, split and dispense fluids.<\/p>\n

It has great potential in advanced research and applications in DNA analysis, proteomics, cell assay and clinical diagnosis, chemical synthesis and drug discovery. It can handle a wide spectrum of liquids such as water, alcohol, alkanes, and particularly silicone oil, which is particularly challenging because of its ultra-low surface tension. Its maneuverable fluid volume can be from 1000 \u03bcl to tiny droplets at 0.001 \u03bcl, i.e. about 0.02% of the volume of blood in a mosquito bite, which is 100 times smaller than that manipulated by its electrical counterpart.<\/p>\n

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\n (upper photos) showing the split of an ethanol droplet by a beam of light on the photopyroelectric microfluidic platform.(below) showing a light-controlled cargo carrier with droplet wheels transporting a solid cargo. Credit: The University of Hong Kong
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“The device functions as a ‘magic’ wetting-proof hand to navigate, fuse, pinch, and cleave fluids on demand, enabling cargo carriers with droplet wheels and upgrading the limit of maximum concentration of deliverable protein by 4000-fold.” Professor Wang said.<\/p>\n

The team will seek to integrate the platform with artificial intelligence (AI) system to work out a fully automatic system for liquid processing. In future, gene editing can be done with the click of a button, instead of repeated pipetting.\n <\/p>\n\n

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Photopyroelectric microfluidics developed by researchers<\/a>\n <\/div>\n

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\n More information:<\/strong>
\n Wei Li et al. Photopyroelectric microfluidics, Science Advances<\/i> (2020). DOI: 10.1126\/sciadv.abc1693<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n
\n Provided by
\n The University of Hong Kong
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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Research team invents novel light-controlled contamination-free fluidic processor (2020, December 8)
\n retrieved 8 December 2020
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2020-12-team-light-controlled-contamination-free-fluidic-processor.html<\/p>\n

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