3D printed selectable dilution mixer pumps

In this paper, we demonstrate the ability to 3D print tightly integrated structures with active valves, pumps, and mixers, and we use our compact chip-to-chip interconnects [Gong et al., Lab Chip 18, 639–647 (2018)] to move bulky world-to-chip connections to separate interface chips for both post-print flushing and post-cure device operation. As example devices, we first examine 3D printed pumps, followed by two types of selectable ratio mixer pumps, a linear dilution mixer pump (LDMP) and a parallelized dilution mixer pump (PDMP), which occupy volumes of only 1.5mm3 and 2.6mm3, respectively. The LDMP generates a selectable dilution ratio from a linear set of possibilities, while the PDMP generates a denser set of possible dilutions with a maximum dilution ratio of 1/16. The PDMP also incorporates a new 4-to-1 valve to simultaneously control 4 inlet channels. To characterize LDMP and PDMP operation and performance, we present a new, low-cost video method to directly measure the relative concentration of an absorptive dye on a pixel-by-pixel basis for each video frame. Using this method, we find that 6 periods of the active mixer that forms the core of the LDMP and PDMP are sufficient to fully mix the fluid, and that the generated concentrations track the designed dilution ratios as expected. The LDMP mixes 20 nl per 4.6 s mixer pump period, while the PDMP uses parallelized input pumps to process the same fluid volume with greater choice of dilution ratios in a 3.6 s period.