A new swappable fluidic module for applications of capillary convective polymerase chain reaction

A new swappable fluidic module (SFM) is demonstrated in this research. We designed and fabricated two basic modular fluidic components including pumps and mixers, which can be easily swapped and integrated into a variety of modular devices for ready assembly of a fully-portable, disposable fluidic system. An integrated SFM utilizes finger-driven electricity free pumps to transport the fluids. Using the swirling mechanism, the vortex mixer, simultaneously actuated by two pumps, has established a mixing index of 93% in a one-shot mixing event. The assembled SFM, working as a sample loader, was serially jointed a DNA application zone to establish a capillary convective polymerase chain reaction (ccPCR) test kit for performing the experiments of rapid DNA amplification. The successful results indicate the amplified DNA sequences from Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) in 30 min using ccPCR. Besides, the current SFM in conjunction with ccPCR show great potential for many bio-applications.