LAPSE:2020.0059
Published Article
LAPSE:2020.0059
Numerical Investigation of Design and Operating Parameters of Thermal Gradient Continuous-Flow PCR Microreactor Using One Heater
Usama Perwez, Imran Aziz, Faisal Ahmed, Mohsin Raza Khan
January 7, 2020
To respond to the dire need for miniaturization and process simplification of continuous-flow PCR (CF-PCR) device, this paper represents design and operation guide of a novel metal alloy assisted hybrid microdevice (polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and glass) for CF-PCR employing one heater. In this research, the specific objectives are to determine whether one heater chip design will be flexible enough when the size of DNA base pair is varied and to investigate whether one heater CF-PCR device will be able to resolve the longstanding problem of thermal crosstalk. Furthermore, the parametric study is performed to determine which of the fourteen parameters have the greatest impact on the performance of one heater CF-PCR device. The main objective of this parametric study is to distinguish between the parameters that are either critical to the chip performance or can be freely specified. It is found that substrate thickness, flow rate, channel spacing, aspect ratio, channel pass length and external heat transfer coefficient are the most limiting parameters that can either improve or deteriorate the chip’s thermal performance. Overall, the impact of design and operating parameters are observed to be least on thermocycling profile at low Reynolds number (≤0.37 Re). However, in addition to the primary metric advantages of CF-PCR, one heater chip design helps in minimizing the thermal crosstalk effects by a factor of 4 in comparison to dual heater PCR while still maintaining a critical criteria of chip flexibility in terms of handling various sizes of DNA fragments. Hence, the proposed scheme paves the way for low-cost point-of-care diagnostics, system integration, and device miniaturization, realizing a portable microfluidic device applicable for on-site and direct field uses.
Keywords
continuous-flow microreactor, Lab on Chip (LOC), point-of-care, one heater, PCR kinetics, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
Suggested Citation
Perwez U, Aziz I, Ahmed F, Raza Khan M. Numerical Investigation of Design and Operating Parameters of Thermal Gradient Continuous-Flow PCR Microreactor Using One Heater. (2020). LAPSE:2020.0059
Author Affiliations
Perwez U: Department of Mechanical Engineering, NUST College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad P.O. Box 44000, Pakistan [ORCID]
Aziz I: Department of Mechanical Engineering, NUST College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad P.O. Box 44000, Pakistan
Ahmed F: Department of Mechanical Engineering, NUST College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad P.O. Box 44000, Pakistan
Raza Khan M: Department of Mechanical Engineering, NUST College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad P.O. Box 44000, Pakistan
Journal Name
Processes
Volume
7
Issue
12
Article Number
E919
Year
2019
Publication Date
2019-12-04
Published Version
ISSN
2227-9717
Version Comments
Original Submission
Other Meta
PII: pr7120919, Publication Type: Journal Article
Record Map
Published Article

LAPSE:2020.0059
This Record
External Link

doi:10.3390/pr7120919
Publisher Version
Download
Files
[Download 1v1.pdf] (6.5 MB)
Jan 7, 2020
Main Article
License
CC BY 4.0
Meta
Record Statistics
Record Views
472
Version History
[v1] (Original Submission)
Jan 7, 2020
 
Verified by curator on
Jan 7, 2020
This Version Number
v1
Citations
Most Recent
This Version
URL Here
https://psecommunity.org/LAPSE:2020.0059
 
Original Submitter
Calvin Tsay
Links to Related Works
Directly Related to This Work
Publisher Version