Continuous Flow vs. Static Chamber μPCR Devices on Flexible Polymeric Substrates

Abstract

Two types of μPCR devices, a continuous flow and a static chamber device, fabricated on flexible polymeric substrates are compared in the current computational study. Laminar flow, heat transfer in both solid and fluid, mass conservation of species, and reaction kinetics of PCR are coupled using COMSOL. The comparison is performed under same conditions; same material stack (based on flexible polymeric films with integrated microheaters), same species initial concentrations, amplification of the same volume of fluid sample, and implementation of the same PCR protocol. Performance is quantified in terms of DNA amplification, energy consumption, and total operating time. The calculations show that the efficiency of DNA amplification is higher in the continuous flow device. However, the continuous flow device requires (~6 times) greater energy consumption which is justified by the smaller thermal mass of the static chamber device. As regards the speed, the total time required for the static chamber μPCR is comparable to the time for the continuous flow μPCR.