4. Results and discussion
The microfluidic culture-based sensor consists of a
microchannel fabricated in COC containing paraffin islands used
for bating and culturing bacteria. The final device formed from
two 1-mm thick COC substrates had dimensions approximately
2 cm×3 cm (Fig. 6). The microchannel was 1mm in width,
15mm in length, and 110m in height, while input and output
ports were 600m in diameter. The three paraffin islands inside
the microchannel were spaced at 2 mm,each being 800 mwide,
1.5mm long, and 5m thick. COC is a relatively new thermoplastic
polymer that has been gaining popularity [33–35] andwas
selected as substrate material in this work due to its excellent
physical and chemical properties. COC is more chemically inert
than most thermoplastics and exhibits very low (350 nm) [36], and thus is an ideal material
for our fluorescence-based detection method. High transmission
is also important since we use a UV-cured adhesive to seal
microchannels at ambient conditions. Most importantly, COC
offers superior adhesion to paraffin.