Droplet-based microfluidics is a colloidal and interfacial system that has rapidly progressed in the past decade because of the advantages of low fabrication costs, small sample volumes, reduced analysis durations, high-throughput analysis with exceptional sensitivity, enhanced operational flexibility, and facile automation. This technology has emerged as a new tool for many recently used applications in molecular detection, imaging, drug delivery, diagnostics, cell biology and other fields. Herein, we review recent applications of droplet microfluidics proposed since 2013.

Recent Advances in Applications of Droplet Microfluidics

Modern meta-heuristics based on nonlinear physics processes: A review of models and design procedures

An open-source compiler and PCB synthesis tool for digital microfluidic biochips

This paper introduces a field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip (FPPC-DMFB), which offers general-purpose assay execution at a lower cost than general-purpose direct addressing DMFBs and highly optimized application-specific pin-constrained DMFBs. One of the key cost drivers for DMFBs is the number of printed circuit board (PCB) layers, onto which the device is mounted. We demonstrate a scalable single-layer PCB wiring scheme for several FPPC-DMFB variations, for PCB technology with orthogonal routing capacity of at least three; for PCB technology with orthogonal capacity of two, more PCB layers are required, but the FPPC-DMFB retains its cost advantage. These results offer new insights on the relationship between PCB layer count, pin count, and cost. Additionally, to reduce the execution time of assays on the FPPC-DMFB, we present efficient algorithms for droplet routing, with and without contamination removal via wash droplets.

A Low-Cost Field-Programmable Pin-Constrained Digital Microfluidic Biochip

An Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization algorithm for the routing of droplets in Digital Microfluidic Biochips

Design automation in Digital micro fluidic biochip is of immense importance in to days clinical diagnosis process. In this paper, we try to build a heuristic algorithm to simultaneously perform droplet routing and electrode actuation. The proposed method is capable of performing (i) droplet routing with minimal electrode usages in optimized routing completion time, and (ii) minimal number of control pin assignment on the routing path for successful droplet transportation. The proposed method is a co-optimization technique that finds the possible shortest path between the source and the target pair for a droplet and assigns control pins in an optimal manner to actuate the routing path. Intersection regions for multiple droplets are also assigned with pins in an efficient manner to avoid unnecessary mixing between several droplets. The proposed method is tested on various benchmarks and random test sets, and experimental results are quite encouraging.

Ritwik Mukherjee

Papers

A Heuristic Method for Co-optimization of Pin Assignment and Droplet Routing in Digital Microfluidic Biochip

Optimization algorithms for the design of digital microfluidic biochips: A survey