Mahdi Mohammadi
Dublin City University, Ireland
Title: Lumped-Element approach for digital simulation of centrifugal microfluidic systems
Biography
Biography: Mahdi Mohammadi
Abstract
Since the 1990s centrifugal “Lab-on-a-Disc” (LoaD) systems has evolved into an exciting opportunity and mature technology platform. These centrifugal microfluidic systems already entered a broad range of applications such as life-science research, biomedical point-of-care diagnostics, environmental monitoring, immunoassays analysis, nucleic acid testing. Over the last decade, simulation has a key role in developing new products, specially for a dynamic system. Simulation is a vital step for microfluidic design and analysis. The typical mesh-based simulation methods, i.e. FEA (Finite Element Analysis) is a very time-consuming with convergence problems however these methods are very accurate. To circumvent this limitation, Lumped element simulation proposed for centrifugal microfluidic network analysis based on the electric circuit which is quite fast and fit for parameter variations. In addition, could simulate fluid flow and pressure distribution through multi elements serial and parallel architectural elements. The centrifugal flow control elements and their networking to complex microfluidic circuitry translate into equivalent, lumped element descriptors. Each lumped element will have certain free parameters, for instance, corresponding to resistances or capacitances. Over the recent years, Ducrée group in DCU has developed a special breed of microfluidic Labâ€onâ€aâ€Chip (LoaC) systems based on centrifugal liquid handling for applications in biomedical pointâ€ofâ€care diagnostics and the life sciences. For the first time, they introduced a form of logical flow control on these soâ€called Labâ€onâ€aâ€Disc (LoaD) platforms which functions on the analogy of digital microelectronics. Based on this analogy, the lumped element simulation, have been implemented for the centrifugal microfluidic network to obtain an efficient microfluidic design. Multiple laboratory unit operations (LUOs) such as sample take-up and liquid transport, metering, aliquoting, routing, mixing, valving, washing have been simulated using Lumped element simulation for different application i.e. RNA extraction, centrifugal analyzer for liver assay, Bioassays in Whole Blood, Point-of- Care applications, ELISA kit