Spatiotemporally Controlled Multiplexed Photothermal Microfluidic Pumping under Monitoring of On-Chip Thermal Imaging

Intelligent contactless microfluidic pumping strategies have been increasingly desirable for operation of lab-on-a-chip devices. Herein, we present a photothermal microfluidic pumping strategy for on-chip multiplexed cargo transport in a contactless and spatiotemporally controllable fashion based on the application of near-infrared laser-driven photothermal effect in microfluidic paper-based devices (μPDs). Graphene oxide (GO)-doped thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-acrylamide hydrogels served as the photothermally responsive cargo reservoirs on the μPDs. In response to remote contactless irradiation by an 808 nm laser, on-chip phase transition of the composite hydrogels was actuated in a switchlike manner as a result of the photothermal effect of GO, enabling robust on-chip pumping of cargoes from the hydrogels to predefined arrays of reaction zones. The thermal imaging technique was employed to monitor the on-chip photothermal pumping process. The microfluidic pumping performance can be spatiotemporally controlled in a quantitative way by remotely tuning the laser power, irradiation time, and GO concentration. The pumping strategy was exemplified by FeCl3 and horseradish peroxidase as the model cargoes to implement on-chip Prussian blue- and 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine-based colorimetric reactions, respectively. Furthermore, multiplexed on-demand microfluidic pumping was achieved by flexibly adjusting the irradiation pathway and the microfluidic pattern. The new microfluidic pumping strategy shows great promise for diverse microfluidic applications due to its flexibility, high integratability into lab-on-a-chip devices, and contactless and spatiotemporal controllability.