Electroactive polymer membranes as substrates for point-of-care devices

Abstract

Point-of-care devices (POC) are becoming essential for medical assistance in emergency situations or location with difficult access to medical infrastructures. In this work, innovative microfluidic substrates based on electroactive poly(vinylidene-co-trifluorethylene)-P(VDF-TrFE) with tuned morphologies and adequate physicochemical properties were developed using electrospinning and phase inversion techniques, as alternative to commercially available two-dimensional microfluidic substrates based mainly on cellulose. Their hydrophilicity was tuned using plasma treatments and barriers were implemented using wax printing to fabricate a design able to carry out glucose assays as a proof of concept.