Documentation
Modular Microfluidics for Synthetic Cells
Modules
Hydrodynamic Traps

Hydrodynamic Traps

Traps overview

Mechanism

Vesicles are trapped under flow by creating arrays of PDMS U-shaped traps. By designing a small slit (< 5 microns) in the centre of the trap, the flow is allowed to pass in a consistent direction, but objects significantly larger than the slits, like lipid vesicles, cannot pass through.

Applications

This design is ideal for applications such as removing unencapsulated waste residue from the external solution, rapidly removing reactants from the environment of the vesicles, or rapidly introducing new components to the vesicles.

Design files

References

  1. Al Nahas K. et al., A microfluidic platform for the characterisation of membrane active antimicrobials, Lab on a Chip, 2019, 19, 837-844.
  2. Fletcher M. et al., DNA-based Optical Quantification of Ion Transport across Giant Vesicles, ACS Nano, 2022, 16, 10, 17128-17138.