Automated high-throughput viscosity and density sensor using nanomechanical resonators

Autor: Thomas Braun, Benjamin A. Bircher, Roger Krenger
Rok vydání: 2016
Předmět:
Zdroj: SENSORS AND ACTUATORS B-CHEMICAL
Sensors & Actuators: B. Chemical
ISSN: 0925-4005
DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2015.09.084
Popis: Most methods used to determine the viscosity and mass density of liquids have two major drawbacks: relatively high sample consumption (∼milliliters) and long measurement time (∼minutes). Resonant nanomechanical cantilevers promise to overcome these limitations. Although sample consumption has already been significantly reduced, the time resolution was rarely addressed to date. We present a method to decrease the time and user interaction required for such measurements. It features (i) a droplet-generating automatic sampler using fluorinated oil to separate microliter sample plugs, (ii) a PDMS-based microfluidic measurement cell containing the resonant microcantilever sensors driven by photothermal excitation, (iii) dual phase-locked loop frequency tracking of a higher-mode resonance to achieve millisecond time resolution, and (iv) signal processing to extract the resonance parameters, namely the eigenfrequency and quality factor. The principle was validated by screening series of 3 μL droplets of glycerol solutions separated by fluorinated oil at a rate of ∼6 s per sample. An analytical hydrodynamic model (Van Eysden and Sader, 2007 [6] ) and a reduced order model (Heinisch et al., 2014 [16] ) were employed to calculate the viscosity and mass density of the sample liquids in a viscosity range of 1–10.5 mPa s and a density range of 998–1154 kg m −3 .
Databáze: OpenAIRE