fluids behave quite differently at the microscale and this enables us to do experiments that we wouldotherwise not be able to do in the laboratory, at the moment we have3 focus areas of research which all have a common requirement for producingspherical capsules the first is in nuclear fusion energy production where we need small capsulesfor putting the nuclear fuel in the second is where we're making protocells, or artificialcells, for studying membrane-protein interactions and the third is where we're studying encapsulation ofthe stem cells to go in the spinal cord to repair your damaged spinal cordif you've been in a car crash
a microfluidic system can be compared to a large-scaleplumbing system, say in this building but reduced in size, onto a chip very small tubes delivering fluids to different typesof sensors and other actuators in the system so we can design small circuitsto move around small volumes of fluid generally using techniques borrowedfrom the microelectronics industry recently, we started using 3d printingto make these microfluidic devices and that has many benefits because it enables usto make microfluidic devices very rapidly so we can iterate and make new designsand improve upon those designs very rapidly it also enables us to make things cheaply
because these printers are cheap and affordable, it'sa technology that we can share with our collaborators and bring microfluidic technology to other people andother researchers who wouldn't otherwise be using it traditional microfluidic techniques requirevery expensive equipment and also a great deal of knowledge ofhow to use that equipment so that puts a lot of people off whereas with 3d printing, you just need tobe able design it on a computer which is fairly simple to learn and then press a button and walk away, and thenyou come back and your device is ready to use it's also beneficial that you can incorporate itwith more traditional techniques quite easily
you can plug it into existing fittingsthat are readily available we begin with the very simple modular building blocks;just tubings and junctions from there, we expanded that toa wider range of different types of microfluidics we used those different design systems to makea modular system that's based on lego that anyone can print out and click them togetherand make their own microfluidic systems previous researchers have discounted this type ofprinting because they found that it leaked and they couldn't see through it but by refining the print characteristics i found thatif you avoid under extrusion you can make the devices both transparentand water-tight
to avoid under extrusion, you have to printquite thin layers and you have to print quite slowly so 50-micron layersat speeds of 30 millimeters a second or less the same techniques that make them water-tightalso beneficially make them transparent because the gaps in between the deviceare what cause you to lose transparency we're pleased with what we've been able to achievewith 3d printing for microfluidics so far but what we're really looking forward to is as the diversity of the materialswith which you can print expands and the resolution of the printers improves being able to make not just fluidic circuits, but integrateoptical and electronic components also
this will enable us to print multifunctional devicesfrom multiple materials in one single device we're working with researchers from a range of fieldsaround the world and 3d printing really allows us to be able to send the design to another laboratory we're working with people in italy, for example and we're able to send them designsthat they can print out in their labs conduct experiments and report back the resultsthe very same day
3d printing jewelry design software,it really makes the process much simpler so thateveryone can access the benefits of microfluidics the beautiful thing about 3d printing is thatpotentially everybody can have them any other walk of life, a hospital, a biologicallaboratory, anywhere really - everybody can use them
it democratizes the technology of making things
