Inkjet-Printed Microfluidic Multianalyte Chemical Sensing Paper

This paper presents an inkjet printing method for the fabrication of entire microfluidic multianalyte chemical sensing devices made from paper suitable for quantitative analysis, requiring only a single printing apparatus. An inkjet printing device is used for the fabrication of three-dimensional hydrophilic microfluidic patterns (550-mum-wide flow channels) and sensing areas (1.5 mm x 1.5 mm squares) on filter paper, by inkjet etching, and thereby locally dissolving a hydrophobic poly(styrene) layer obtained by soaking of the filter paper in a 1 wt % solution of poly(styrene) in toluene. In a second step, the same inkjet printing device is used to print "chemical sensing inks", comprising the necessary…