Issue 24, 2012

Versatile method for bonding hard and soft materials

Abstract

We report a versatile method for bonding dissimilar materials which is an important issue in the fabrication of micro- and nanofluidic devices. Recently we have demonstrated a simple, surface modification based method for irreversible bonding of thermoplastics to polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) at room temperature. Here, we present the applicability of this technique for bonding various hard materials including metals and plastics to a soft material like PDMS. An irreversible bonding was formed when the hard material activated by oxygen plasma followed by aminopropyltriethoxy silane (APTES) modification was brought into contact with the plasma treated PDMS and incubated at room temperature. The modified surfaces were characterized by water contact angle measurement, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The analytical data confirms the presence of silane moiety on the treated surface. The tensile strength values of the bonded devices were in the range between 40 kPa∼700 kPa, depending on the type of materials used for bonding. The tested hard materials include gold (Au), platinum (Pt), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), aluminum (Al), polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE) and Teflon and the soft materials include PDMS and butyl rubber.

Graphical abstract: Versatile method for bonding hard and soft materials

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 May 2012
Accepted
02 Aug 2012
First published
24 Aug 2012

RSC Adv., 2012,2, 9066-9070

Versatile method for bonding hard and soft materials

V. Sunkara, D. Park and Y. Cho, RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 9066 DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20880F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements