General-Purpose, Parallel and Reversible Microfluidic Interconnects

The packaging of microfluidic chips is a limiting factor in their ease of use and widespread application. A simple and versatile casting procedure to fabricate a parallel minimal dead-volume connector using polydimethylsiloxane elastomers without the application of any adhesive materials is demonstrated. The interconnections reversibly join standard-sized teflon, glass, or plastic tubing to modular microfluidic systems with minimal dead volume for biological and chemical applications. Parallel port connectors with 18 and 35 channels have been developed to illustrate the applicability of this novel universal fluidic interface to the large-scale integration of microfluidic (chip) devices, which will scale without problem to 100 parallel channels. The advantages of this novel interface are evaluated in relation to a comprehensive classification and analysis of other world to chip interconnection technologies.