Developing an ultra non-fouling SU-8 and PDMS hybrid microfluidic device by poly(amidoamine) engraftment

A new strategy to prepare an ultra non-fouling SU-8/poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) hybrid microfluidic system is presented. We report a simple method to bond both SU-8 and PDMS surfaces to prepare the hybrid microfluidic device and then simultaneously modify both SU-8 and PDMS surfaces using poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM), a highly hydrophilic dendrimer to enhance non-fouling properties of the hybrid microfluidic channel. Water contact angle, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) are used to characterize and confirm surface modifications. Finally the non-fouling performance of the resulting microfluidic system is tested using both microbeads and Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacterial cells. We demonstrate that the obtained hybrid microfluidic system shows a significant microbead adsorption suppression of 99.7%, an ultra non-fouling performance that has not been reported in the literature before; in addition, 95% bacteria surface adsorption suppression is also obtained. Considering the significantly improved non-fouling performance and the ease of preparing the hybrid microfluidic system, we anticipate that this strategy will find wide applications in biosensing and detection. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.