Abstract

Innovative Flow Control Solutions For a Wide Variety of Applications

Anne Le Nel, Chief Operating Officer, Fluigent SA

Microfluidics is seeing an increasing interest from its original use by fluidic and engineering groups now evolving to chemists and biologists in academic and industrial settings. This transformation in applications has dictated new experimental requirements that need to be dealt with, especially for applications where flow control is critical. Our method to control multiple flow rates based on pressure actuation is presented. An algorithm has been developed to automatically adjust the applied pressure to reach the targeted flow-rates. The ability to control and monitor both pressure and flow-rate is the core of this technology. Very fast settling times, excellent stability for liquid and gas handling, specific flow profiles, robustness and high repeatability can be easily achieved. Different functionalities such as buffer selection/recirculation or even detection synchronization combined with automation tools will be presented. Specific flow control platforms have been developed for different applications like organ-on-a-chip, cell culture, lab-on-a-chip, flow cytometry, as well as quality control for high-throughput screening.