Lab-on-a-chip for biology cell sorting

• Main Author: Mohamad Zaki Buang.
• Other Authors: Liu Aiqun
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Microelectronics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/55130
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Waterborne diseases can be deadly, claiming approximately five million lives in a year globally according to statistics collated from the World Health Organisation (WHO). Pollutants in the water cause detrimental effects to not only human health but also to plants and animals. Even with preventions and measures to combat water pollution, contaminated water is being still being unknowingly consumed by a lot of people worldwide. Additionally, conventional techniques for testing contamination of water have many known drawbacks to it. These arrays of methods usually have a need for qualified professionals of the field to undertake the challenge. To add on, it is also time consuming as immense man hour labour is required to detect, identify and carry out specific interventions to the parasites and viruses discovered in the contaminated water. Moreover, the clean water industries are always actively looking at rapid and quick detection systems for microbes like cryptosporidium and giardia. Such detection systems would be able to significantly prevent more unnecessary deaths that continue to haunt many around the world. Thus, this research project is greatly motivated and inspired by this fact and need to create a rapid and effective microbial detection system. Hence, in this project, an acoustics method is introduced to the detection system to improve the recovery and detection of particles. This project is basically to engineer a real-time detection system which has not been successfully produced in the current market. It involves the design and fabrication procedures of microfluidic chip using glass that is one of the most commonly used micro fabrication. This report will also cover the integration of the detection system with an acoustofluidic system. Microfluidics is a great tool that is widely used in various industries. The narrow channels are perfect to trap and detect parasites and viruses.