Hydrogel-filled Capillaries as In-Plane Barriers in Microfluidic Devices

摘要

Biopolymer hydrogels, such as alginate, agar, and agarose are widely used in biomedical and molecular biology applications for biological separations and as a matrix for cell support. Hydrogels have frequently been used to establish chemical gradients in microfluidic devices, but they often require very specific flow conditions to form the gelled barrier, may be unstable in certain flow regimes, have variable thickness or cross-linking density, and may be difficult to implement in a variety of microfluidic designs.