Porous polyethylene terephthalate membranes in microfluidic applications

In this paper we present a method for the integration of porous track-membranes into silicone based microfluidic devices. It is based on a surface modification of the membranes which enables us bonding it to silicone using a glue-free plasma bonding process. The membrane can be structured into permeable and impermeable regions on a sub-10 mu m scale. This is achieved by combining polymer imprinting with a layer transfer technique. The membrane is characterized and a direct current microclectrode array is presented as an application example. (C) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.