A pneumatically controllable flexible and polymeric microfluidic valve fabricated via in situ development

In this paper, we have developed a pneumatically controllable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microfluidic valve. This valve regulates 'On/Off' of flow using the thick centered membrane. To integrate the freely moving thick centered membrane, regional bonding of the PDMS layer is required. Here, we integrated such a membrane employing a water soluble mask as a regional bonding method, and the mask was washed out by flowing distilled water. The fabricated valve showed good `On/Off' operations in accordance with the applied pneumatic pressure source. The flow rate could be regulated by the pressure applied to the inlet (regulated by changes in the height of the water column) and the compression-/vacuum-period ratio (this means the ratio of 'On' and 'Off' periods in each cycle) in the range of a few microliters per minute. For the durability test, ten valves were operated simultaneously one million times, and no failed valves were observed.