Back on the microfluidic. Detection of #microplastics from water? No problem! Our microfluidic can filter and size-sort them in a single flush. Add nile red and check if they are plastic or something else. Red=plastic, black=not plastic.

Identification of #Zooplankton? Once more, not a problem. Fill a syringe from a pond, flush the liquid on the microfluidics, and boom, zooplankton is size sorted in the device, ready for identification (thanks @ReynaudEmmanuel :))

#Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease (#NTD); one diagnosis is finding the parasite egg in urine. It can be as low as one egg in one liter. We can use our microfluidic to find and identify the egg using cheap microscopes.

How cheap, you ask? Same question I asked @beniroquai: “what’s the cheapest microscope we can do for this detection?” And so the #ESP32 #microscope was born. Less than 10€, mostly 3D printed, wifi, and fully open: https://github.com/Matchboxscope/Matchboxscope/blob/master/Matchboxscope.md

Do you know those annoying layer lines on #3Dprinted parts? In resin #3Dprinters, they are as small as 25 microns… And we can make #microfluidics molds with these printers. Does this mean we can reach 25 microns features in Z?

YES! We can make a mold for a “staircase” microfluidic device. Now we have steps of 25um on the height of the channel. This #microfluidic does not only filter #microparticles, but also size-sort them. Particles of different sizes will be blocked on different steps.