Acupuncture Sample Injection for Microchip Capillary Electrophoresis and Electrokinetic Chromatography

A simple nanoliter-scale injection technique was developed for polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic devices to form the well-defined sample plugs in microfluidic channels. Sample injection was achieved by performing acupuncture on a channel with a needle and applying external pressure to a syringe. This technique allowed us to achieve reproducible injection of a 3-nL segment into a microchannel for PDMS microchip-based capillary electrophoresis (CE). Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and capillary electrochromatography (CEC) with bead packing were successfully performed by applying a single potential in the most simplified straight channel. The advantages of this acupuncture injection over the electrokinetic injection in microchip CE include capability of minimizing sample loss and voltage control hardware, capability of serial injections of different sample solutions into a same microchannel, capability of injecting sample plugs into any position of a microchannel, independence on sample solutions during the loading step, and ease in making microchips due to the straight channel, etc

Polypyrrole/Agarose-Based Electronically Conductive and Reversibly Restorable Hydrogel

Conductive hydrogels are a class of composite materials that consist of hydrated and conducting polymers. Due to the mechanical similarity to biointerfaces such as human skin, conductive hydrogels have been primarily utilized as bioelectrodes, specifically neuroprosthetic electrodes, in an attempt to replace metallic electrodes by enhancing the mechanical properties and long-term stability of the electrodes within living organisms. Here, we report a conductive, smart hydrogel, which is thermoplastic and self-healing owing to its unique properties of reversible liquefaction and gelation in response to thermal stimuli. In addition, we demonstrated that our conductive hydrogel could be utilized to fabricate bendable, stretchable, and patternable electrodes directly on human skin. The excellent mechanical and thermal properties of our hydrogel make it potentially useful in a variety of biomedical applications such as electronic skin