How to remove plasma-bonded PDMS from glass?

02 Dec 2015

Wojciech Adamiak, Martin Jönsson-Niedziolka

Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland

wadamiak@ichf.edu.pl

Why is this tip useful?

It allows to remove and bind different PDMS structures many times to one and the same glass surface. It is especially useful for electrochemical measurements where the glass surface is coated with metal electrodes [1,2]. It allows to test different channel geometries on one and the same electrodes which saves money and time required for depositing new electrodes.

What problem does it solve?

If the channel is clogged, damaged or simply we want to do electrochemistry with different channel geometry, we do not have to make new electrodes on glass. We can remove the unwanted PDMS structure and re-use the glass plate with the new channels.

What do I need?

Concentrated H₂SO₄, glass pipette, glass beaker, tweezers, gloves and lab glasses to work with concentrated H₂SO₄.

What do I do?

Put the PDMS chip in a Petri dish (Figure A).
With a glass pipette, add concentrated H₂SO₄ along the edges of PDMS (Figure B).
Leave the chip in contact with H₂SO₄ for a few minutes.
Gently peel off PDMS from the glass using tweezers (Figure D).
Wash the glass plate with water.
The glass plate is ready for plasma-binding to a new PDMS structure.