Abstract
On-chip immuno-sensors are a hot topic in the microfluidic community, which is usually limited by slow diffusion-dominated transport of analytes in confined microchannels. Specifically, the antigen-antibody binding reaction at a functionalized area cannot be provided with enough antigen source near the reaction surface, since a small diffusion flux cannot match with the quick rate of surface reaction, which influences the response time and sensitivity of on-chip heterogeneous immunoassay. In this work, we propose a method to enhance the transportation of biomolecules to the surface of an antibody-immobilized electrode with induce charge electroosmotic (ICEO) convection in a low concentration suspension, so as to improve the binding efficiency of microfluidic heterogeneous immunoassays. The circular stirring fluid motion of ICEO on the surface of a floating gate electrode at the channel bottom accelerates the transport of freely suspended antigen towards the wall-immobilized antibodies. We investigate the dependence of binding efficiency on voltage magnitude and field frequency of the applied alternate current (AC) electrical field. The binding rate yields a factor of 5.4 higher binding for an applied voltage of 4 V at 10 Hz when the Damkohler number is 1000. The proposed microfluidic immuno-sensor technology of a simple electrode structure using ICEO convective fluid flow around floating conductors could offer exciting opportunities for diffusion-limited on-chip bio-microfluidic sensors.