Craft-and-Stick Xurographic Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidic Electrochemical Sensing Platform

An innovative modular approach for facile design and construction of flexible microfluidic biosensor platforms based on a dry manufacturing craft-and-stick approach is developed. The design and fabrication of the flexible graphene paper electrode (GPE) unit and polyethylene tetraphthalate sheet (PET)6/adhesive fluidic unit are completed by an economic and generic xurographic craft approach. The GPE widths and the microfluidic channels can be constructed down to 300 mu m and 200 mu m, respectively. Both units were assembled by simple double-sided adhesive tapes into a microfluidic integrated GPE (MF-iGPE) that are flexible, thin (<0.5 mm), and lightweight (0.4 g). We further functionalized the iGPE with Prussian blue and glucose oxidase for the fabrication of MF-iGPE glucose biosensors. With a closed-channel PET fluidic pattern, the MF-iGPE glucose biosensors were packaged and sealed to protect the integrated device from moisture for storage and could easily open with scissors for sample loading. Our glucose biosensors showed 2 linear dynamic regions of 0.05-1.0 and 1.0-5.5 mmol L-1 glucose. The MF-iGPE showed good reproducibility for glucose detection (RSD < 6.1%, n = 6) and required only 10 mu L of the analyte. This modular craft-and-stick manufacturing approach could potentially further develop along the concept of paper-crafted model assembly kits suitable for low-resource laboratories or classroom settings.

Automated summary

An innovative modular approach for designing and constructing flexible microfluidic biosensor platforms using a dry manufacturing craft-and-stick approach has been developed. The approach involves the design and fabrication of graphene paper electrode (GPE) units and polyethylene tetraphthalate sheet (PET)/adhesive fluidic units using an economic and generic xurographic craft approach. The assembled microfluidic integrated GPE (MF-iGPE) is flexible, thin (<0.5 mm), and lightweight (0.4 g). This modular craft-and-stick manufacturing approach has the potential to be used in low-resource laboratories or classroom settings.