Depressurised reservoirs for portable fluid extraction in SU-8-based microfluidic systems

A depressurisation method to build SU-8 chambers as pneumatic energy reservoirs is described. The method consists in a combination of injection/extraction of uncrosslinked SU-8 and its exposure in different steps, intended to set the pressure of a chamber below atmospheric. These chambers are intended to be integrated with an actuation system to perform the extraction of fluids from the outside to the inside of a microfluidic SU-8 lab-on-a-chip. This method improves the portability of the platform because external pumps used to impulse the fluids can be avoided.