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Acoustofluidics has promised to enable lab-on-a-chip and point-of-care devices in ways difficult to achieve using other methods. Piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers—as small as the chips they actuate—provide rapid fluid and suspended object transport. Acoustofluidic lab-on-chip devices offer a vast range of benefits in early disease identification and noninvasive drug delivery. However, their potential has long been undermined by the need for benchtop or rack-mount electronics. The piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers within require these equipment and thus acoustofluidic device implementation in a bedside setting has been limited. Here we detail a general process to enable the reader to produce battery or mains-powered microcircuits ideal for driving 1–300 MHz acoustic devices. We include the general design strategy for the circuit, the blocks that collectively define it, and suitable, specific choices for components to produce these blocks. We furthermore illustrate how to incorporate automated resonance finding and tracking, sensing and feedback, and built-in adjustability to accommodate devices' vastly different operating frequencies and powers in a single driver, including examples of fluid and particle manipulation typical of the needs in our discipline. With this in hand, the many groups active in lab-on-a-chip acoustofluidics can now finally deliver on the promise of handheld, point-of-care technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a versatile and simple method to perform sequential reactions on paper analytical devices by stacking dry pullulan films on paper, where each film contains one or more reagents or acts as a delay layer. Exposing the films to an aqueous solution of the analyte leads to sequential dissolution of the films in a temporally controlled manner followed by diffusive mixing of the reagents, so that sequential reactions can be performed. The films can be easily arranged for lateral flow assays or for spot tests (reactions take place sequentially in the z-direction). We have tested the general feasibility of the approach using three different model systems to demonstrate different capabilities: 1) pH ramping from low to high and high to low to demonstrate timing control; 2) rapid ready-to-use two-step Simon's assays on paper for detection of drugs of abuse utilizing a 2-layer stack containing two different reagents to demonstrate the ability to perform assays in the z-direction; and 3) sequential cell lysing and colorimetric detection of an intracellular bacterial enzyme, to demonstrate the ability of the method to perform sample preparation and analysis in the form of a spot assay. Overall, these studies demonstrate the potential of stacked pullulan films as useful components to enable multi-step assays on simple paper-based devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photonic crystal fibres appear to be an ideal platform for the realisation of novel optofluidic devices and sensors due to their waveguide nature and microstructured architecture. In this paper, we present the fabrication and characterisation of an in-line photonic crystal fibre microfluidic refractometer enabled by a C-shaped fibre. The C-shaped fibre spliced in-between the photonic crystal fibre and the single-mode fibre allows simultaneous in-line optical signal delivery and analyte fluid feeding. Through an arc discharge pre-treatment technique, we successfully achieve selective exploitation of only the central two channels of the photonic crystal fibre for microfluidic sensing. After constructing a Sagnac interferometer, a highly sensitive refractometer with a sensitivity of 8699 nm per RIU was achieved experimentally; this agrees very well with the theoretical value of 8675 nm per RIU. As a demonstration for label-free optical sensing application, the refractometer was used to measure the concentration of NaCl solution with a sensitivity of 15.08 nm/(1 wt%) and a detection limit of 2.3 × 10−3 wt% (23 ppm). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe an inkjet printed paper-based sensor that reports ATP by the enzyme catalysed hydrolysis of S-methyl-l-cysteine generating an odour (methyl mercaptan) that is easily detectable by the human nose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water soluble pullulan films were formatted into paper-based microfluidic devices, serving as a controlled time shutoff valve. The utility of the valve was demonstrated by a one-step, fully automatic implementation of a complex pesticide assay requiring timed, sequential exposure of an immobilized enzyme layer to separate liquid streams. Pullulan film dissolution and the capillary wicking of aqueous solutions through the device were measured and modeled providing valve design criteria. The films dissolve mainly by surface erosion, meaning the film thickness mainly controls the shutoff time. This method can also provide time-dependent sequential release of reagents without compromising the simplicity and low cost of paper-based devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of trialkylphosphonium oxoborates (TOB) as catalysts is reported. The site-isolated borate counter anion in a TOB catalyst increases the availability of C(sp 3 )-H to interact with electron donor substrates. The catalytic protocol is applicable to a wide range of substrates in the acetalization reaction and provides excellent chemoselectivity in the acetalization over thioacetalization in the presence of alcohols and thiols, which is otherwise hard to achieve using typical acid catalysts. Experimental and computational studies revealed that the TOB catalysts have multiple preorganized C(sp 3 )-Hs that serve as a mimic of oxyanion holes, which can stabilize the oxyanion intermediates via multiple C(sp 3 )-H non-classical hydrogen bond interactions., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

This paper reports the development of a method to control the flow rate of fluids within paper-based microfluidic analytical devices. We demonstrate that by simply sandwiching paper channels between two flexible films, it is possible to accelerate the flow of water through paper by over 10-fold. The dynamics of this process are such that the height of the liquid is dependent on time to the power of 1/3. This dependence was validated using three different flexible films (with markedly different contact angles) and three different fluids (water and two silicon oils with different viscosities). These covered channels provide a low-cost method for controlling the flow rate of fluid in paper channels, and can be added following printing of reagents to control fluid flow in selected fluidic channels. Using this method, we redesigned a previously published bidirectional lateral flow pesticide sensor to allow more rapid detection of pesticides while eliminating the need to run the assay in two stages. The sensor is fabricated with sol-gel entrapped reagents (indoxyl acetate in a substrate zone and acetylcholinesterase, AChE, in a sensing zone) present in an uncovered "slow" flow channel, with a second, covered "fast" channel used to transport pesticide samples to the sensing region through a simple paper-flap valve. In this manner, pesticides reach the sensing region first to allow preincubation, followed by delivery of the substrate to generate a colorimetric signal. This format results in a uni-directional device that detects the presence of pesticides two times faster than the original bidirectional sensors.