Exploration of Thread for their Possible use in Fabrication of Low Cost Diagnostic Microfluidic Device

Abstract

The emerging concept of thread-based microfluidics has shown great promise for application to inexpensive disease detection and environmental monitoring. This paper describe the properties of thread for the development of thread based low-cost microfluidics device for the diagnostic, food safety and environmental assay. Various properties of thread like capillary flow, wicking capacity and absorption capacity, make them important to fabricate the low-cost microfluidics device. In this paper, three different thread sample viz. cotton yarn, cotton thread and spun thread were taken and different properties like wicking capacity, fluid capillary flow, absorption capacity were measured as well as Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) analysis of the same was also carried out to study the morphology and texture of thread fibers. Data obtained from result indicate that the cotton thread having all the ideal characteristic to fabricate the diagnostic device and thus it is suitable for the fabrication of thread based microfluidics device for the diagnostic purpose.