Additive manufacturing (3D printing) offers a flexible approach for the production of bespoke microfluidic structures such as the electroosmotic pump. Here a readily accessible fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printing technique has been employed for the first time to produce microcapillary structures using low cost thermoplastics in a scalable electroosmotic pump application. Capillary structures were formed using a negative space 3D printing approach to deposit longitudinal filament arrangements with polylactic acid (PLA) in either "face-centre cubic" or "body-centre cubic" arrangements, where the voids deliberately formed within the deposited structure act as functional micro-capillaries. These 3D printed capillary structures were shown to be capable of functioning as a simple electroosmotic pump (EOP), where the maximum flow rate of a single capillary EOP was up to 1.0 μl min⁻¹ at electric fields of up to 750 V cm⁻¹. Importantly, higher flow rates were readily achieved by printing parallel multiplexed capillary arrays.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	3D printing, electroosmotic pumps, fused filament fabrication, additive manufacturing
Research Division:	Chemical Sciences
Research Group:	Analytical chemistry
Research Field:	Instrumental methods (excl. immunological and bioassay methods)
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the chemical sciences
UTAS Author:	Wu, L (Dr Liang Wu)
UTAS Author:	Cabot, JM (Dr Joan Cabot Canyelles)
UTAS Author:	Paull, B (Professor Brett Paull)
ID Code:	151720
Year Published:	2021
Web of Science® Times Cited:	3
Deposited By:	Chemistry
Deposited On:	2022-08-03
Last Modified:	2022-09-13
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