Zhang Y, Tseng TM, Schlichtmann U. ColoriSens: An open-source and low-cost portable color sensor board for microfluidic integration with wireless communication and fluorescence detection.
HARDWAREX 2022;
11:e00312. [PMID:
35572858 PMCID:
PMC9095929 DOI:
10.1016/j.ohx.2022.e00312]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2022] [Revised: 04/25/2022] [Accepted: 04/26/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Microfluidic colorimetric biosensors have shown promising potential for detecting metal cations, anions, organic dyes, drugs, pesticides. As for today, most colorimetric sensors are read by a smartphone or professional optical imaging system, and there is still a lack of an affordable and reliable colorimetric detector for the microfluidic chip. Integrating those reading and detection capabilities into a microfluidic system is essential for point-of-care (POC) detection and can enable more complex microfluidic operations, such as lab-on-a-chip experiments or programmable microfluidics. We developed an open-source colorimetric detection sensor board that can be integrated into the existing microfluidic system. This sensor board has a built-in UV source that enables fluorescence detection. With built-in USB and Wi-Fi connectivity and a set of simple APIs, microfluidic systems can communicate directly with this sensor board, even wirelessly. The sensor was designed for low-cost. With a total build cost of less than 12 EUR per unit, it is ideal for low-cost systems and DIY microfluidic users. Along with the sensor board, we also designed a companion microfluidic chip carrier cartridge which can be modified depending on the chip's dimension. To demonstrate the sensor, we also developed a cross-platform open-source client application to demonstrate the communication APIs and the functionality of the sensor board.
Collapse