Fabrication of paper-based microfluidic sensors by printing

A novel method for the fabrication of paper-based microfluidic diagnostic devices is reported; it consists of selectively hydrophobizing paper using cellulose reactive hydrophobization agents. The hydrophilic–hydrophobic contrast of patterns so created has excellent ability to control capillary penetration of aqueous liquids in paper channels. Incorporating this idea with digital ink jet printing techniques, a new fabrication method of paper-based microfluidic devices is established. Ink jet printing can deliver biomolecules and indicator reagents with precision into the microfluidic patterns to form bio-chemical sensing zones within the device. This method thus allows the complete sensor, i.e. channel patterns and the detecting chemistries, to be fabricated only by two printing steps. This fabrication method can be scaled up and adapted to use high speed, high volume and low cost commercial printing technology. Sensors can be fabricated for specific tests, or they can be made as general devices to perform on-demand quantitative analytical tasks by incorporating the required detection chemistries for the required tasks.