Experimental study on microfluidic nanoparticle immobilization using a biomimetic method

This paper reports a biomimetic method inspired by clam to immobilize nanoparticles easily on microfluidic chips. In nature, clam predation is benefit from a mucus-covered system, used for trapping suspended plankton. Through mimicking the mucus-covered system by a common adhesive tape, we immobilized TiO2 nanoparticles easily and environmental friendly, obtaining a better immobilization amount than glasses. Also, the immobilized nanoparticles shows a better affordability on high sheer stress than that on glasses. Moreover, we focused on the distribution of the immobilized nanoparticles along the microfluidic chip. This biomimetic method overcomes the problems in the prevailing immobilization methods such as polymer entrapment, covalent binding and electrostatic that require complex processes or expensive reagent/equipment.