ABSTRACT
A microfluidic chip with integrated microelectrode for real-time dopamine detection was designed and fabricated. The chip consisted of a polydimethylsiloxane ( PDMS) channel plate and a glass electrode plate. One central channel as the culture chamber of neural stem cells and two lateral channels for transport of the culture medium were integrated on the PDMS channel plate. Microelectrodes for real-time dopamine detection were integrated on the glass electrode plate. To solve the problem in demoulding the PDMS channel plate from the silicon mould, a novel demoulding method was developed. An Au-Au-Au three-electrode system was constructed, and it performed well in electrochemical detection. The performance of the microfluidic chip was primarily studied by detecting dopamine dissolved in the medium for the culture of neural stem cells. The limit of detection was 3. 92 μmol/L, the linear detection range was from 10 μmol/L to 500 μmol/L, and the detection reproducibility from different chips was less than 4%.