Three-Dimensional Electro-Sonic Flow Focusing Ionization Microfluidic Chip for Mass Spectrometry†

Micromachines

Cilong Yu²  Xiang Qian²  Yan Chen³  Quan Yu²  Kai Ni²  Xiaohao Wang²  Manabu Tokeshi¹ 

[1] Division of Advanced Manufacturing, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, ChinaDivision of Advanced Manufacturing, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China;Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China;

关键词: microfluidic chip;    ionization;    electro-sonic flow focusing;    two-phase flow;    soft lithography;    mass spectrometry;   

DOI  :  10.3390/mi6121463

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Increasing research efforts have been recently devoted to the coupling of microfluidic chip-integrated ionization sources to mass spectrometry (MS). Considering the limitations of microfluidic chips coupled with MS such as liquid spreading, dead volume, and manufacturing troubles, this paper proposed a new three-dimensional (3D) flow focusing (FF)-based microfluidic ionizing source. This source was fabricated by using the two-layer soft lithography method with the nozzle placed inside the chip. The proposed FF microfluidic chip can realize two-phase FF with liquid in air regardless of the viscosity ratio of the continuous and dispersed phases. MS results indicated that the proposed FF microfluidic chip can work as a typical electrical ionization source when supplied with high voltage and can serve as a sonic ionization source without high voltage. The electro-sonic FF ionization microfluidic chip is expected to have various applications, particularly in the integrated and portable applications of ionization sources coupling with portable MS in the future.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.