A 3D printed microfluidic device and miniaturized fluorimeter towards low-resource environments

A 3D printed microfluidic device and corresponding miniaturized fluorimeter was demonstrated with inexpensive components towards the use in a low-resource environment. The microfluidic device (channels approximately 150 μm wide, 100 μm high and 8.5 mm long) was 3D printed on a standard 3 × 1 inch glass slide using a custom SLA 3D printer. The fluorimeter housing was made using a commercial FDM 3D printer that included slots for the associated excitation/emission filters, a blue LED source, an inexpensive 12MP CMOS camera and a raspberry pi controller. A limit of detection of 85 nM fluorescein dye was shown.