Online measurement of mass density and viscosity of pL fluid samples with suspended microchannel resonator

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Vol. 185; pp. 456 - 461
• Main Authors: Khan, M.F., Schmid, S., Larsen, P.E., Davis, Z.J., Yan, W., Stenby, E.H., Boisen, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.08.2013
• Subjects: Density; industry; Microfluidics; packaging; petroleum; Quality factor; Resonance frequency; Suspended microchannel resonator; Viscosity; Viscosity; Suspended microchannel resonator; Quality factor; Density; Resonance frequency; Microfluidics
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2013.04.095

•Suspended microchannel resonator was fabricated with transparent microfluidic channels.•The resonator was able to handle multiple solutions.•The resonator was used to measure density and viscosity of different oil as well as solvents.•Concentration of binary solutions of ethanol and water was also detected. Physical characterization of viscous samples is crucial in chemical, pharma and petroleum industry. For example, in the refining industry of petroleum, water percentage is verified by measuring the density of a sample. In this article we present a suspended microchannel resonator (SMR) which uses 5pL of a fluid sample and measures its density with a resolution of 0.01kg/m3 and a sensitivity of 16Hz/kg/m3. The resonator can also simultaneously measure viscosity of the solutions with an accuracy of 0.025mPas. The SMR is part of a system which contains packaging and tubing to deliver samples to the resonator. The system can easily handle multiple viscous fluids to measure their densities and viscosities. The SMR is transparent, facilitating visual inspection of the microchannel content.