Success with PDMS-Glass Bonding
Yesterday afternoon I made a new batch of 10:1 (base : curing agent) PDMS and put it in the oven at 80C for two hours to allow it to cure faster (compared to the three days it takes at room temperature). Once the PDMS was cured Henry used the UV Ozone system to again try to form PDMS-Glass bonds.
Again, we ran the protocol posted on the blog for operation of the UV Ozone system with a temperature setting of 25C. Henry tried using cover slips that were not cleaned as well as ones that received a rinse in ethanol and DI-water. From the results it seems that the cover slips that were first cleaned formed stronger bonds.
It seems that we can repeatedly bond PDMS to our glass cover slips using the UV Ozone system so the next step is to see if we can get PDMS to bound to our membrane chips using the same protocol.
I am going to post another protocol on the blog for preforming this process with details about orientating the PDMS and glass in the UV Ozone system etc.
We should figure out a way to quantify the bond strength. I’m guessing we’ll eventually want to make PDMS ufluidic channels and that the pressures will be pretty high. It will be good to know if the bond will hold up.