Digital chemical reactors
Chemists have long been interested in miniaturizing chemical reactions to take advantage of favorable scaling of diffusion and heat exchange. Most efforts to miniaturize chemical reactions have relied on networks of enclosed microchannels. Such systems are not an ideal match for this application because of clogging of solid reagents and precipitates, complex plumbing issues, and material incompatibilities. Digital microfluidics represents a potential solution to these problems. We are working to develop digital liquid reactors for a variety of applications including multiplexed chemical synthesis and enzyme assays. Papers describing these efforts are listed below.
Chan, C.; Peng, J.; Rajesh, V.; Scott, E.Y.; Sklavounos, A.A.; Faiz, M.; Wheeler, A.R. "Digital Microfluidics for Microproteomic Analysis of Minute Mammalian Tissue Samples Enabled by Photocleavable Surfactant" J. Prot. Res. 2023, 22, 3242-3253. Supporting Info,Supporting Figures,Movie.
Peng, J.; Chan, C.; Zhang, S.; Sklavounos, A.A.; Olson, M.E.; Scott, E.Y.; Hu, Y.; Rajesh, V.; Li, B.B.; Chamberlain, M.D.; Zhang, S.; Peng, H.; Wheeler, A.R. "All-in-One Digital Microfluidcs Pipeline for Proteomic Sample Preparation and Analysis" Chemical Science 2023, 14, 2887 - 2900. Supporting Info 1,Supporting Info 2,Movie.
Wu, B.; von der Ecken, S.; Swyer, I.; Li, C.; Jenne, A.; Vincent, F.; Schmidig, D.; Kuehn, T.; Beck, A.; Busse, F.; Stronks, H.; Soong, R.; Wheeler, A.R.; Simpson, A. "Rapid Chemical Reaction Monitoring by Digital Microfluidics-NMR: Proof of Principle Towards an Automated Synthetic Discovery Platform" Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 15372-15376. Supporting Info.
Swyer, I.; Ecken, S.v.d.; W, B.; Jenne, A.; Soong, R.; Vincent, F.; Schmidig, D.; Frei, T.; Busse, F.; Stronks, H.J.; Simpson, A.J.; Wheeler, A.R. "Digital Microfluidics and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy for in situ Diffusion Measurements and Reaction Monitoring" Lab Chip 2019, 19, 641-653. Supporting info.
Swyer, I.; Soong, R.; Dryden, M.D.M.; Fey, M.; Maas, W.E.; Simpson, A.; Wheeler, A.R. "Interfacing Digital Microfluidics with High-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy" Lab on a Chip, 2016, 16, 4424-4435. Supporting info.
Kirby, A.E.; Wheeler, A.R. "Microfluidic Origami: A New Device Format for In-Line Reaction Monitoring by Nanoelectrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry" Lab on a Chip 2013, 13, 2533-2540.
Jebrail, M.J.; Assem, N.; Mudrik, J.M.; Dryden, M.D.M.; Lin, K.; Yudin, A.K.; Wheeler, A.R. "Combinatorial Synthesis of Peptidomimetics Using Digital Microfluidics" Journal of Flow Chemistry 2012, 2, 103-107.
Jebrail, M.J.; Ng, A.H.C.; Rai, V.; Hili, R.; Yudin, A.K.; Wheeler, A.R. "Synchonized Synthesis of Peptide-Based Macrocycles by Digital Microfluidics" Angew. Chemie. Int. Ed., 2010, 49, 8625-8629. Supporting Info
Luk, V.N.; Wheeler, A.R. "A Digital Microfluidic Approach to Proteomic Sample Processing" Anal. Chem. 2009, 81, 4524–4530.
Miller, E.M.; Wheeler, A.R. "A Digital Microfluidic Approach to Homogeneous Enzyme Assays" Anal. Chem. 2008, 80, 1614-1619.