Letizia Amato

Detection methods for centrifugal microfluidic platforms.

Centrifugal microfluidics has attracted much interest from academia as well as industry, since it potentially offers solutions for affordable, user-friendly and portable biosensing. A wide range of so-called fluidic unit operations, e.g. mixing, metering, liquid routing, and particle separation, have been developed and allow automation and integration of complex assay protocols in lab-on-a-disc systems. Besides liquid handling, the detection strategy for reading out the assay is crucial for developing a fully integrated system. In this review, we focus on biosensors and readout methods for the centrifugal microfluidics platform and cover optical as well as mechanical and electrical detection principles.

Integrating electrochemical detection with centrifugal microfluidics for real-time and fully automated sample testing

Here we present a robust, stable and low-noise experimental set-up for performing electrochemical detection on a centrifugal microfluidic platform. By using a low-noise electronic component (electrical slip-ring) it is possible to achieve continuous, on-line monitoring of electrochemical experiments, even when the microfluidic disc is spinning at high velocities. Automated sample handling is achieved by designing a microfluidic system to release analyte sequentially, utilizing on-disc passive valving. In addition, the microfluidic system is designed to trap and keep the liquid sample stationary during analysis. In this way it is possible to perform cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements at varying spin speeds, without altering the electrochemical response. This greatly simplifies the interpretation and quantification of data. Finally, real-time and continuous monitoring of an entire electrochemical experiment, including all intermediate sample handling steps, is demonstrated by amperometric detection of on-disc mixing of analytes (PBS and ferricyanide).