High-integrated microvalve for Lab-on-chip biomedical applications

This paper presents a single-use fluid microvalve for lab-on-chip (LOC) applications that combines printed circuit board and SU-8 technologies. The main advantage of this device lies in the simplicity and low cost of the fabrication process. The operation of the valve consists in extracting a certain quantity of fluid by mechanical phenomenon when a membrane is melt by a resistor. The design is conceived to be integrated in an array composed by microneedles modules and biosensing devices. Integration of the microvalve has been maximized with the planar layout presented here. With this merge of technologies is possible to include microfluidics and electronics in the same LOC device, which is intended to biomedical applications. Experimental results that show the microvalve performance are presented.