Combining Wax Printing with Hot Embossing for the Design of Geometrically Well-Defined Microfluidic Papers

A simple, efficient, and repeatable combination of wax printing and hot embossing is reported. This combination yields microfluidic channels in paper, where fluid transport driven by paper-intrinsic capillary forces takes place inside the noncompressed areas, whereas embossed and wax-bonded areas serve as hydrophobic barriers laterally confining the fluid flow. Lab-made paper sheets first coated with a hydrophobic wax were hot-embossed with a tailor-made metal stamp. Both paper-intrinsic (e.g., grammage, fiber type) and paper-extrinsic parameters (e.g., embossing force) were studied for their influence on the geometry of the embossed structures and the resulting redistribution of the wax within the paper matrix. Embossing of wax-printed paper at temperatures above the wax melting point was completed within 15 s. Cotton linters papers required higher embossing forces than eucalyptus papers, which can be explained by their different intrinsic mechanical properties. In summary, both paper-intrinsic and paper-extrinsic parameters were found to have strong impact on resolution and reproducibility of the channels. All in all, the approach yields microfluidic channels in a fast and robust and reproducible manner with comparably low constrains on the precision of manufacturing parameters, such as embossing time, force, or temperature. Most importantly, embossing greatly reduces the lateral spreading of the wax as seen with melting approaches and therefore allows for a much higher feature density than the latter.