Microfluidics

Prof. Suman Chakraborty

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur

Lecture - 03
Microfluidics: Some More Application Examples

In our previous lecture, we were discussing about some examples of applications of

microfluidics. And we will continue with some more examples in this particular lecture. In
previous lectures, we were discussing about some applications related to medical sciences, and
some applications where we were discussing about DNA cells and all these. Many of these
fundamental studies could be directed towards medical diagnostics, and we will come into that
later on.

But in addition to medical diagnostics in microfluidics we are also looking for possibilities of
delivering a medical treatment that how can microfluidics help towards delivering medical
treatment. So I will talk about one example which is based on a collaborative work between us
and the Tokai University at Kanagawa Japan, and this work is related to the development of a
painless micro review for blood extraction and drug delivery.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:33)

So again I want to give you broad picture before entering into this example, so like I can give
you the example of management of diabetes, although this particular innovation is not restricted
to management of diabetes, but I can just give you a perspective that there are many diabetes
patients who need regular monitoring of the blood glucose level, and who need regular injection
of insulin.

Now this is something which is for example as you can see that this like injection of insulin
requires, I mean something of a drug and that many times is considered to be a little bit painful
considering the psychology and the physiological aspects together, and it is not something which
is very comfortable. On the other hand, many times, the dosage of insulin which is given is based
on some average value that is prescribed.

And it is not consistent with the requirement of the insulin that is necessary at that instant of
time, so sometimes maybe the dose is overdose, sometimes maybe the dose is under dose. So the
objective of making a new device is to design a painless system for testing of the blood, and then
delivering necessary insulin based on the level of glucose at for existing at that instant of time in
the blood sample.

So how this is done just look into this the cartoon that is going on, it is just like a wristwatch the
type of device, so I mean it gives an elusive appearance that it is a wristwatch, but actually there
are microneedles at the back of this wristwatch. So this particular wristwatch type of a device, it
has microneedles in the back, and these microneedles can suck blood, so these microneedles can
suck blood using a particular mechanism, which I discuss in details in one of our later lectures.

But in short we have tried to design it in a painless fashion, so how is it possible, here is an
important concept that is used many times not in microfluidics only but in any of the micro and
nano technology applications that is biomimetics. That means mimicking the biological world for
making a device, so towards that what has been done is something like this, when a female
mosquito sucks blood, there is a particular mechanism by which the mosquito sucks blood.

And the mechanism is little bit involved we will talk about that later on, but the mechanism is
such that the suck the pressure that is created for sucking the blood is a negative pressure or a
suction pressure. And therefore if you can emulate that through engineering device which can
create a suction pressure in miniaturized increment, then by suction pressure the blood is sucked
into the needle, and that is the small amount of blood, but that is good enough to make the test.

Next question is when the blood is sucked, how will it be transported through the needle?
Because it is a microneedle, there because of the micrometer dimension surface tension is a very
important force. So by surface tension driven flow blood is transmitted from one end of the
needle to the other, and then that blood what is done again let me run the movie of the device
again.

And what happens is that there is a microelectrical pumping system for blood extraction using a
piezoelectric microactuator, so basically there is the blood extraction system and this system is
designed based on a female mosquitoes blood sucking mechanism. Then there is a MOSFET
based biosensor to detect and evaluate the amount of glucose in the extracted blood, so in the
same device there is a biosensor.

The biosensor detects and evaluates the amount of glucose in an extracted blood using an
enzyme such as glucose oxidase, and then when the device sensors that is the amount of glucose
that is there in the blood sample, then there is a delivery of the necessary amount of insulin based
on the level of glucose of blood at that particular instant of time. So this entire activity is sort of I
mean compacted in the form of a wristwatch type of a device.

And this device is claimed to be painless because of several reasons, I mean when we are
thinking of pain, pain has 2 different facets, one is the physical aspects of pain I mean which is
taken care of by the painless action of the needle of the microneedle. Because it takes the blood
by creating a suction pressure by itself the way in which mosquitoes sucks blood, now we can
always argue that when a mosquito is sucking blood we are feeling some irritation.

But that irritation is not because of the mechanical pain associated any mechanical indentation
pain associated with the penetration of the labium of the mosquito that is just because of the
chemical irritant that the mosquitoes spread during the biting process. So mechanically it is a
painless process. On the other hand, from the psychological point of view also instead of like
somebody extracting blood and delivering drug using some injection syringe.

If you feel, if you see that the same thing is taking place by virtue of a device which is like a
wristwatch, and which is operated just by pressing a button, then you feel much more
comfortable mentally instead of somebody using reasonably sized injection syringe for taking
blood and delivering the necessary drug. So this combination makes it painless device so to say.
Now I mean we worked on this project through Indo-Japan that DST JSPS collaborative
program.

And as you can understand from the total I mean scope of this project that it is the true
interdisciplinary project, as one of the point that I highlighted that microfluidics is an
interdisciplinary field by itself. So you can see that this entire gamut of activities that has led to
the development of this wristwatch type of device, it is not something which is alone within the
scope of microfluidics.

So microfluidics is only bothered about the design and analysis of the microneedle. And then that
has to be integrated with several other technologies which are closely related to microfluidics
maybe MEMS, sensors, actuators and all these, and then packaging, integration all those things
together make a device which I mean sort of tries to propose an alternative diabetes management
as compared to what is routinely done in the under normal circumstances.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:09)
So we have talked about some bio examples, just for a change let me talk about an example of
like thermal management this is not a biological application, but it is the application of different
kind. So well the background of this is something as follows, as we have reduced the sizes of the
electronic devices, what happens is that the rate of heat dissipation per unit volume has
increased, because the power rating of the devices have not decreased but the size of the device
has decreased.

So the volumetric energy dissipation rate, because of heating of these devices has gone up, so
when that has occurred it is necessary that you manage these devices thermally by devising a
cooling strategy. Now how do you cool these devices? Now to cool these devices, one possibility
is that you use a fan, like fan cooled CPUs are very common in desktop computers. Now when
you think of using a fan in a miniaturized device you are actually losing the advantage of
miniaturization.

Because you have made the device small for certain advantages, now if you are using a big fan to
cool a small device, then your entire purpose of miniaturization is lost. So what do you want to
do is you want to have a system of thermal management which is commensurate with the
miniaturized design of the electronic device itself. And this is very very important, because in
many of the electronic devices the device actually fail not because of the failure in the electronic
design.
But maybe because of the failure in thermal design, so one has to be very, very particular about
that. So to do that there are several technologies, I will talk about one such technology which is
called as micro heat pipe, so I will talk about 2 technologies, one is micro heat pipe. So what is
the heat pipe, so if you can see here that this is essentially a capillary, where in contact with the
heated section some fluid will evaporate.

And then this evaporated fluid is transmitted by capillary action to the other end which is cooler
one and their it is condensed, and the condensed liquid is again back. So in this way what
happens is that, it is possible that it is like a circulation loop that goes on evaporation
condensation, then back evaporation condensation like that. So this type of system this type of
arrangement is called as a heat pipe.

So if you are using make no mechanical pumping but you are using just capillary pumping, to
drive the evaporated fluid or to drive that condensed fluid, then that is something which is called
as a micro heat pipe, where in microscale arrangement you are using the capillary action to drive
the transport, otherwise you require weeks for transmitting the fluid. So I mean these kinds of
devices, I mean have already emerged in the practical scenario, and these devices have several
advantages.

So no use of mechanical pumping micro groups enhanced capillary pumping no requirement of

weak in heat pipes, because the capillary action itself takes care of the transport over small
scales. Lowers volume to surface area ratio leads to efficient control over interfacial transport, as
I already mentioned that in these kinds of devices, because of miniaturization you have large
surface area by volume ratio.

That means that the heat transfers or as a matter of fact even any transport, maybe heat transfer
maybe mass transfer, the transport coefficients are large. And so one can control the transport
processes further by patterning the weightability and roughness of the substrate, this is something
which is very unique to small scale system. In a large scale system, it is not so easy to control the
transport by controlling the roughness and weightability.
But over a small scale by controlling the roughness and weightability of the substrate, it is
possible to control the flow in a nice manner. So that is one of the applications, and we have
worked on certain projects in this particular area. And I will talk about another example which is
going on in this movie which is pointed here. That you are using droplet to cool an electronics
gadget, so how is it possible?

So if you have a droplet, you can move the droplet by use of electrical field, I will show you later
on that how it is possible I am not going into the science at this stage, that how you can move a
droplet by using an electric field. But let me tell you, let me summarize you that I mean how it is
possible, so if you apply a voltage to a droplet then these will be a change in contact angle. Now
if you are applying the same voltage to all the corners of the droplet.

Then the change in contact angle will be symmetrical, and there will be no resultant force. But if
you are applying 2 different voltages at across 2 ends of a droplet, then the contact angles at the 2
ends will be different, and that will give rise to a net surface tension force in a certain direction,
and that will move the droplet from one location to the other. So if you can so this kind of
microfluidics where you handle droplets is called as droplet based microfluidics.

And sometimes the droplets are considered to be carriers of digital information, so it is a

particular example of something which is called as digital microfluidics, not that all examples of
droplet based microfluidics are digital microfluidics. But if the droplets are considered to be
carrying digital information, I mean we can perceive that as digital microfluidics, so what is
happening that the droplet is moving in a certain path.

Let us say there is a source of the droplet, and there is a destination, the destination is the
location which is a point which is the hotspot in the device. So we have to understand carefully
that first we have to know the temperature distribution in the device. So you require to either
have a thermal imaging of the device or better if you have a nice simulation tool, then by solving
the heat transfer equation the energy equation, you can get a distribution of temperature over the
device.
Then you know where the hotspots are located, where there are locations of high temperature. So
what you can do? You can target your droplet to go and sit on a hotspot, so then you have to
design electrodes and you have to design such that design an algorithm such that the droplet
moves by an optimal path for going from the source to the destination, this is the problem of
computer science.

So as I told you that these kinds of problems are interfaces of say fluidics with other branches of
engineering other branches of science, so it is not that just like somebody with the traditional
knowledge of fluid mechanics will alone be able to solve this problem. So this requires
interfacing with electrical and computer science, so then the droplet is targeted to move in a
certain manner and when the droplet moves in a certain manner.

So you can see in this movie that like these are electrodes, and these electrodes are sequentially
switched on and off, on and off like that, when the droplet goes from one electrode to the other
then the previous electrode is switched off and the next electrode is switched on, and then we
have to design what should be the voltages for how long this droplet should be kept switched on
and then off and so on. So these are all nice design problems.

So then finally, the droplet goes and sits on the hotspot and takes the heat, now a good thing
about the droplet is that it can take the heat in the form of latent heat, so that there is no
appreciable rise in temperature of the system. And when the droplet takes the heat in the form of
latent heat it may be locally evaporated also, and then you replenish that by a new stream of
droplets that goes and sits on the hotspot.

So it is possible to selectively address hotspots by targeting droplets to hotspots. So this is a very

modern outlook of thermal management of electronic devices. And we have worked on a project
where we have tried to implement these for laptop computers for cooling of laptop computers. So
problems can have various operations, so you can see that this is an example where 2 droplets
have merged, and I mean these are all examples from our own lab.
So these droplets have merged and once these droplets are merged, see I have shown this
example for chip cooling, but the same problem can be used for considering droplets as reactors.
So if you run this again, let us say that this red droplet has reactant A, and other droplet has
reactant B, so once they merged together the A and B will be mixed quickly, and they will react
to form a product C. So that can be used to achieve biological or biochemical reactions.

So the same technology can be used on one hand for thermal management, on the other hand the
same technology can be used for bio applications or chemical applications. So you can see that
interesting fundamental science can lead to so many applications in the microfluidics domain.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:48)

So I mean previously we were discussing about low cost healthcare that is it how microfluidics
can help in achieving the paradigm of low cost healthcare. So as we see in many applications
related to medical technology, see medical technology is huge area, and it is not that
microfluidics alone plays the role in that area, there are several aspects of medical technology but
I am just trying to address some aspects which are covered by microfluidics.

So in one side we have seen that like we can address cells, DNAs through microfluidics, on other
side I have shown you that how you can make say for example microneedles for blood extraction
and drug delivery using microfluidic principles. But you have to keep in mind that one big part
of the domain that remains to be challenging not just in the developing world, but also in the
developed countries is proper medical diagnostics.

So when we say diagnostics again diagnostic is the huge area, so I am restricting myself only to
those cases where the diagnostics implies the testing of blood, urine, saliva these types of fluids.
Because I mean as essentially when we are handling small values of fluids that is where
microfluidics comes into the picture. So let us say I am just giving an example from the
perspective of say rural India as an example.

So let us say that somebody is suffering from a particular ailment, let us say a fever some kind of
unknown fever for a few days, then when the person is suffering from fever for a few days and
fever he or she is not recovering from fever, then there is a suspicion that it could be some vector
borne diseases for example that it could be malaria dengue or even it could be typhoid I mean
whatever.

I mean sometimes symptoms are so vague that it is difficult to identify from the symptoms that
what is the origin of the fever, so that the patient has to be tested for his or her blood sample.
Now this kind of healthcare facility is not available at all remote locations, and it is a well
understandable, I mean there is nobody to be blamed for this, because in a huge country I mean
which is very densely populated.

And there are places where there is not so much access to modern healthcare I mean this is
something with which we have to live. But we have to get a solution to overcome these
constraints, so I will tell you that what kind of solution is possible and how can microfluidics
play a role in that, but traditionally what will be done the patient will be taken to a healthcare
center which maybe is located a few meters from his or her own location.

Then the blood sample will be taken there not a small amount of blood sample, but a significant
amount of blood sample which adds to the agony of the patient, but anyway we are all habituated
and accustomed to this. And then that particular blood sample if it requires a specialized testing,
then that will be taken to a very specialized lab which again maybe located at a far of distance
and then that sample will be tested.

And the result if it is a specialized test it may take a few days for the result to come, and by the
time the result has come many times we are lucky if the patient is still surviving. So that is how
these kinds of I mean this kind of scenario I mean it is not very uncommon, and that is how it is
traditionally goes on. And now think of an alternative system, I am proposing an alternative
system which appears to be something I mean which is a sort of a dream system.

But this is just an alternative microfluidics based approach, so instead of a very expensive lab
which is doing this test, you what you do is you employ a health worker, a health worker who is
not very highly trained, but just good enough to prick the fingertip and take a single drop of
blood from that, and not a huge amount of blood just a single drop of blood, and that will be
loaded in a handheld miniaturized device which is the microfluidic device.

What kind of device these are? We will talk in great details of that through in this particular
course, but for the time being assume some handheld type of device, if the handheld type of
device looks like a compact disc look like a CD, it is called as lab on a CD that is where the
entire activities of a chemical laboratory or sort of integrated in a small disc like device. So then
this device is run by a motor.

And when the motor runs this device and you load the device with blood samples, and in many
of the in these devices there are many radial and cross radial channels which are made, these are
microchannels. Again I will demonstrate you that how microchannels are made in these devices,
so when you make channels in these devices then what will happen, and let us say that you sort
of load each of the channels with a particular chemical that will test the existence of a certain
disease in the blood sample.

So a very common principle can be that in contact with the blood sample, if so these chemicals
are essentially like an antigens or antibodies, so if there is a matching antigen or antibody in the
blood signifying the disease there will be an antigen-antibody reaction, and because of the
antigen-antibody reaction there will be a change in color. So the change in color may be visible,
but that is very ideal many times it may not be visible very shortly.

So one has to do an image processing, and then by image processing one can sort of decide
whether a particular disease is there or not. So this device is rotated in a motor, and the images of
the blood sample as the blood is being transmitted in these channels, then those images can be
taken. And then when these images are taken, then what happens? Then the question is how will
this image be processed?

Now I mean when we first started working in this particular field, I mean many of my students
were sort of trying to do that image processing using MATLAB, there is nothing wrong with that,
but in a sort of a more convenient paradigm one can nowadays use instead of such complicated
image processing capabilities much simpler maybe less accurate, but more or less giving the
solution type of technology that is using just the android based platform of a smartphone to grab
the image.

And then based on that that image will be processed, and when that image is processed, the result
of the image processing by an SMS will be sent to a medical doctor be sitting in the big city, and
that medical doctor will look into that result of the test and immediately give necessary advice
through an return SMS, and that starts the treatment. So this entire process has several
advantages. So what are the advantages?

See I mean there of course you can see here is that it is an integration of microfluidics
technology with mobile technology, information technology and all these. I am not bringing the
information or the mobile technology part into the picture here, because that is not an explicit
contribution of microfluidics, but what microfluidics is achieving here? You see that first of all
you do not have to do the tests in a big lab.

You do it in a miniaturized device, and this device can be fabricated in a very low cost manner, I
will show you that how you can fabricate these devices at a very, very low cost, and then you use
only a small volume of blood, and because you use the only small value of blood you require
only very small volume of reactants the chemicals which will react with this blood for the blood
testing, so that will reduce the cost because of high surface area to volume ratio.

You will see that these devices are highly reactive, and you can expect rapid reactions, and rapid
outcome of the test. So you can do low cost, rapid diagnostics in a portable manner, and this is
called as point of care diagnostics, that instead of taking the patient to the hospital you sort of
bringing a mobile hospital to the patient, and then do the necessary testing. So this is a sort of a
paradigm which is not just suited for a country like India, but many countries throughout the
world for diseases of any for say diagnosing diseases of any genetic type.

And you can appreciate from this discussion that microfluidics can play a big role towards that.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:15)

So now these device as you can make more inexpensive by having very simple innovations, this
is what a point I want to highlight, that in microfluidics for the low cost medical diagnostics it is
not the complexity of the system that maybe an USP of your device, it can actually be the
simplicity of the system that can be an USP. So this is the device that we innovated in our group
this is called as paper and pencil device.

So you have a simple paper based microfluidic device, paper based microfluidic device is not our
innovation it is an innovation from professor Whiteside’s group in the Harvard University. So
what we made certain innovations to make the fabrication of microchannels on paper based
devices in a very inexpensive manner, I mean which is greatly advantages as compared to what is
done routinely, but I will come into that later on when I discuss about fabrication of microfluidic
channels.

But on the top of that what we tried to do is as I discussed earlier that in many microfluidic
systems you can augment the rate of fluid flow by applying electric field. So we try to apply
electric field on the paper based device to make the water move faster, or for example here the
blood sample for diagnostic device, it will not be water but blood sample that we can make it to
move faster. So what we did is something like this that we have to fabricate electrodes.

Now electrodes fabrication is a very involved process in MEMS devices, so here what we did
instead is that instead of going for expensive or elaborate electrode deposition techniques. What
we did is we scratch the paper, you can see this black region we scratch the paper with HB pencil
just HB pencil, and the graphite in the pencil help to act make this scratch locations act as
electrodes.

So this device is made just by a simple paper with a simple printer used to sort of print channels
on these papers, and then scratching pencil makes electrodes, so by using a simple printer, a
paper and pencil we can make a smart microfluidic device which can use for blood testing, so
this is called as paper and pencil device. So I mean there are several innovations possible I will
talk about the scientific aspects of the paper and pencil device, how do these devices work? And
so on, but for the time being we will move on to some other examples.
(Refer Slide Time: 35:11)
So I talked about some examples related to bio and some other examples which are not related to
bio, but as I hinted that there are some applications in microfluidics which relate or nanofluidics
which related to energy. And in energy sector microfluidics is now becoming a very key area, I
mean which is playing its role. So I will talk about some concept which is called as nanofluidic
battery, it can also be microfluidics battery.

But just these devices are more efficient if we go to the nanodomain than in the microdomain, so
that is why I have made like the title as nanofluidic battery, but I mean it could also be
microfluidics battery. So what is the principle? So again we will be discussed about that in detail,
so you can see there is a pressure driven flow if you follow this movie there is the pressure
driven flow that is taking place.

There is a parabolic velocity profile you see this is a pressure driven flow, and there are ions
moving with the flow, so how do you have ions in the flow? So you have a device in the device
the surface gets spontaneously charged, and the surface gets spontaneously charged because of
certain electrochemistry at the interface between the substrate and the fluid, I will talk about this
later on that how the surface gets spontaneously charged.

Let us say that the surface gets negatively charged, this is just an example, so if the surface gets
negatively charged and the entire fluid is electrically neutral, so the bulk of the fluid will have
more positive charge than the negative charge. And when this pressure driven flow is occurring
then this excess positive charge will be accumulated in the downstream direction, and that means
that a voltage is created across the device.

So when this voltage in a dynamic condition is created across this device, and then if you
connect this with an external resistor which is not shown in this cartoon, if you connect this with
an external resistor, then a current will flow through the external resistor and power will be
generated. So you have an input energy which is the hydraulic form of energy, and the output
energy is an electrical form of energy.

So this is hydraulic to electrical form, and this kind of device is called as nanofluidic battery. So I
will later on discuss that how you can use you can have enhancement of efficiency of these
devices, what are the challenges? Now each of these devices can have energy conversion in I
mean the power generated maybe of very low magnitude that is say few milliwatts may be for
example. But in many devices you can have large number of parallel arrays of microchannels
and nanochannels.

So if each of these devices can generate few milliwatts of power, then it is possible to generate a
good amount of power using these devices, you cannot use this for large-scale applications. But
in small scale applications it is very much possible to use this for energy purposes. So one of the
big advantages is that is a clean energy generation technology, so it does not require any
combustion of fuel and all these things, so it is direct conversion from hydraulic to electrical
form.

Now one of the limitations when we tried to learn a device, we have to also appreciate what are
the limitations, why are these devices not in the market? I mean these devices have very low
energy conversion efficiency, so maybe the maximum value that people have realized so far with
in experiments is at the most I mean not even 10%, but I mean it has been shown theoretically
that if you go to nanofluidic devices.
Then in the nanofluidic domain you can use the slip boundary condition at the wall to have
instead of the no slip boundary condition to have a more rapid rate of transport of these ions and
that means more current. So to have more current in the system, you should the current is the
combination of advection, because with the fluid flow the ions are moving, and the like
something called as electromigration.

Electromigration is the movement of electrical charges because of applied field, so here there are
no electric field is applied, but an electric field is induced a back electric field is induced, and
what the back electric field does is it creates a current due to electromigration which is a back
current which is shown in this direction, and there is a forward current due to advection, at
steady state these 2 currents should balance, so that net current through the system is 0.

Because you have no excess charge in the system, so the net current must be 0, but there is a
potential. And you can realize the current the net current by having an external resistor, but
through this system the net current will be 0. So coming back to the point, so efficiencies of these
devices is low, so you can enhance the efficiencies of this device, and if you can do that if you go
to the nanofluidic domain, and if you can enhance the efficiencies of these devices.

Then it may be possible that using these kind of devices, you can compact the entire device the
entire power generation device in entire device can work in a cyclic process just like a power
plant, you can miniaturize that in the form of a chip. So I mean we have undertaken such a
project titled plant on a chip, so we are trying to now make a small miniaturize power plant on a
chip by using this particular principle.

So I can tell you that this is not our technology of the present, but I made this is currently in the
lab scale and many people are investigating fundamentals of these, but soon a time will come
when this will be converted into viable technology.
(Refer Slide Time: 41:51)
Another example this is not based on work from our group, but work from other resources group
synthetic leaves for power generation. So the reference from which this work is taken is
highlighted here, so if you are interested you can read this paper. So this takes an example takes a
clue from photosynthesis for pumping fluid, so what it is doing is water is sucked from the main
stem of artificial system at 1.5 centimeter per second.

It moves towards the edges of the leaves and evaporated through the created pores, so this is
something what commonly takes place. Now how can you harvest energy from that? So that is
done by this innovation, the main stem has metal plates are connected to circuits, and the charged
plates and water within custom form 2 conducting layers separated by an insulating layer. So it is
a system where you have a dielectric.

Now as the liquid is getting converted to vapor during evaporation, the permittivity of the system
changes right, because the dielectric constant of the liquid is different from that of the vapor. So
charge stored in the system Q=C*V right, and C is a function of epsilon like for a parallel plate
capacitor is epsilon/D, so C is a function of epsilon the permittivity. So if the permittivity
changes with the time, because of a dynamical evaporation process.

Then the capacitance also changes with the time that means Q also changes with the time
because Q=C*V, so you have dQ/dt that means you have a current. So that is how in the system
you can harvest energy and it is possible that a tiny amount of electricity is generated, the output
maybe 2 to 5 microvolt with power density of about 2 microwatts per cc. So you can see that this
is a very interesting way of harvesting energy.
(Refer Slide Time: 44:02)

I will discuss about a couple of more applications before we call it a day today, now I have
discussed about biological applications energy related applications. Now an application related to
computer science, this is called as bubble logic microfluidic bubble logic, again this is not a work
done from our group, this work has been done by one of my friend say Dr. Manu Prakash, I mean
when he was a student of the Harvard University.

So you can see here like let us say that you have say bubbles or droplets, they are arriving at a
junction one from the direction A and another from the direction B, bubble arriving at the
junction always enter the wider channel right, it has an option whether it will enter the wider
channel or the narrower channel, because the wider channel has less resistance any system
remember always has the tendency to go through a least resistance path.

So the bubbles will initially go to this junction that is the direction of a+b, increasing the output
flow resistance of a+b and after sometime the bubbles will be diverted to the other direction that
A dot B. So you can make a logic circuit using that, and in this movie you will see that how like
bubbles arrived at junctions, and after sometime you will see that instead of going through the
wider channel it will start going through the narrower channel.

So these bubbles if they contain digital information, then it is possible to make new generation
computers using this microfluidic logic, and this is called as bubble logic. So these are very
fascinating areas of science that can be addressed by microfluidics.
(Refer Slide Time: 46:05)

Now I have talked about many applications, but I mean I will try to wind up today's lecture with
some little bit of science that may go in some of these applications. Now in many microfluidic
channels we find that roughness is very critical, roughness of the channel is very critical and the
reason is straight forward, in a microfluidic device or even in a nanofluidic device the roughness
length scale is comparable to the system characteristic length scale.

So roughness plays a very critical role, and poorer the manufacturing technique is rougher is the
substrate, and we consider that as negative consequences that is an adverse effect of the device
because we expect that friction will increase because of the roughness. Now this was an
understanding for a long time, and this is something which is very intuitive, but in science
studies are often non-intuitive.
That means certain experiments revealed that if you are having a rough microchannel, then you
are actually getting a very smooth flow instead of a rough behavior instead of a high resistance
against the flow. So this is something which we try to look into from a fundamental theoretical
perspective, because this is something which is which at that point of time when this was
addressed by the research community appeared to be an outstanding problem.

I mean a problem which is associated with lots of anomalies, and then what came out of the
investigation to cut the story short that it was revealed that roughness of the surface in
conjunction with the weightability that if you have a coupling of hydrophobicity and roughness,
hydrophobic microchannel surfaces are very common, because many of the microfluidics
substrates are normally hydrophobic.

And they are actually treated specially by some oxygen plasma or maybe some other technology
to make hydrophilic. Otherwise, these surfaces will be hydrophobic, so when these surfaces are
hydrophobic and they have roughness elements, then roughness and hydrophobicity combination
can give rise to small scale bubbles, which are nanobubbles, these bubbles are residing on the
surface of the microchannel, see bubble formation in microfluidics is a very critical thing.

If you have bubbles which are having the same length scale as that of the system then this
bubbles will block the flow, and bubble clogging is a very serious problem in microfluidics. I
mean anybody who has done practical work with pressure driven micro flows will know that it is
actually a great job to see that the fluid is actually going through the microchannel, forget about
the science part of the work.

And that many times occurs because the bubble is clogging the flow passing. Now here we are
not talking about such bubbles, we are talking about nanoscale bubbles that is bubbles which are
say of the length scale of around 10 nanometers or so. These bubbles are very stable, and these
bubbles are standing on the microfluidic substrate, so when these bubbles are standing on the
microfluidic substrate, then what is happening?
Then the liquid which is going on the top of these bubbles that liquid is not directly and
comparing the roughness elements, so that liquid is flowing as if on a cushion of bubbles, so the
bubbles are acting like blankets which are not exposing the outer liquid to the with the roughness
elements which are there on the surface. So that makes the flow apparently frictionless or with
very low friction.

Because instead of the liquid encountering roughness elements the liquid is smooth sailing over
the bubbles, so in systems where bubbles are not there, then what will happen? That instead of
bubbles you can have a low density depleted layer which may not be bubble but low density
layer adhering to the solid boundary over that you have the bulk density. So the bulk density
fluid is moving on a low density cushion that is being separated by the surface roughness
elements.

Therefore, although the surface is rough, you can see that how it can be this is an image of
atomic force microscopy, so you can see how rough these are. But if this is blanketed with the
low density fluid, then the high density fluid which is flowing on the top of it is not exposed to
the roughness elements, and what has given to this low density fluid it is the combination of
roughness and weightability.

So here the roughness acts as the blessing in disguise, and we call it the rough makes it smooth.
So it is the roughness that gives rise to the smoothness of the flow, and this is something which is
very non-intuitive, and that is why it is a very interesting and fascinating aspect of science in an
all of us grow up, we tend to realize that there are certain things which are very intuitive right,
even a little child does not put his or her finger in fire.

Because he or she will know that will born, who has thought this? Just maybe nature has taught
this to the young child, so this is from intuition. So most of the learnings that we have in science
are primarily out of intuition, and there is nothing wrong with that. But as we move ahead with
our life we understand that there are certain things which do not occur just out of intuition, they
are actually counterintuitive.
If we keep our eyes open towards that and do not think that as a mistake, and instead of that we
try to understand or unwin the science that goes behind that non-intuitive finding to me that is
what is learning of science, and that is how learning of science progresses. So this is one
particular example I mean this kind of example can be thought of as hyper fluidity in micro or
nanochannels. We have done some work on this.

But it is very difficult where the challenge remains is that these inception and distribution of
nanobubbles is actually a stochastic phenomenon, so it is not possible always to make a
reproducible engineering device out of this fascinating science. So that remains still as a
challenge that to translate this science into a device, and if we can translate this science into a
device then you see that it again like it can add value to many systems.

For example, the low cost medical diagnostic devices, because they are of low cost they are
made of such manufacturing processes which can give rise to serious roughness elements, and
those roughness elements can be then exploited as a benefit, so that you can have a rapid
transport of the blood sample and you can have rapid reaction. So but this not already realized in
a device, I am just trying to give you a futuristic outlook that how can this science be brought
into a technology which may be useful for the common people.

So in microfluidics we handle or we deal with many such fascinating examples where there are
wide ranges of applications, and the beauty of the subject is that on one hand you have lots of
practical applications on which you can work as an engineer, on another hand you have
fascinating science, which you can bring into the technology to make the technology more
effective. And one requires experiments and theory combinations of both to address this
particular needs.

So there could be many more examples which I would have talked about, but I think we should
be restricted here in terms of the number of examples, and be it is good time now that we now
enter into the theoretical and experimental foundations of the subject. So in the next lecture, what
we will do is that we will revisit the classical continuum equations typically the Navier Stokes
equation, the energy equation and the species conservation equation, the mass transfer equation.
These equations we will derive starting from the very basics, so that everybody comes to the
common platform. And then we will use those equations for certain applications related to
microfluidics, and try to find a contrasting feature with the corresponding macroflows, and see
and try to also discuss about situations when those equations may break down either those
equations or the boundary conditions accompanying those equations. So we will start addressing
those from the next lecture onwards, thank you very much.