Fabrication and Applications of Polymer Microfluidic Chips by a Simple Hot Embossing Method

A simple cheap method of hot embossing fabrication of poly(methylmethacrylate)(PMMA)chips using capillary(180μm wide)as templates was presented.The factors that influenced the fabrication of the microchannel and the bonding of the two PMMA slides were investigated.The microchannel images were given by scanning electron micrographs(SEM).The measurement of electroosmotic flow was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the fabrication procedure.The results of microchip electrophoresis coupled with laser-induced fluorescence detection and confocal fluorescence image of the microchannel indicated that the protein stationary phase could be stably and homogeneously immobilized in the obtained PMMA microchannels.Furthermore,the as-prepared microchip can perform chiral separations of tryptophan enantiomers within short time with an efficiency of 450000 and 19000 plates·m-1,separately.