Flow splitter for organ on chip
Branch up to 6 chips to a single pump
Pressure-driven flow controllers, syringe or peristaltic pumps
Know the flow rate of each of your line splits
Flow splitting and organ on chip
One of the largest limitations of instruments for organ-on-chip research at the moment is its inability to provide researchers with similar throughput when compared to conventional techniques, such as well plates.
Increasing the numbers of chips running in parallel usually means buying more pumps and substantially increasing the complexity and footprint of the system.
Splitting the flow, although obvious as a solution, is not trivial. The varying resistances of each line, caused by biological debris, differing chip dimensions, or subtle size differences in tubing, result in different flow rates, rendering the experiment results not comparable.
Image Caption: B-cell follicle inside a mouse lymph node
We decided to tackle this problem. By evenly splitting the flow and constantly monitoring and controlling the flow rates, you can maximize the throughput of each of your pumps with peace of mind.
Setup
- Pressure-driven or syringe pumps
- Flow splitter
- Reservoirs
- Tubings and fittings
- Microfluidic chip
- User guide
- Software
The flow splitter was designed to be effortlessly included in your current setup, if it works with pressure-driven or syringe pumps. You connect it to the outlet of your reservoir or syringe and its outlets to each of your chips. It’s controlled by a dedicated software, in which you can set the flow rates, monitor and control them throughout your experiment.
Reservoirs, tubing, and connectors are all commercially available, can be reused or disposable, and can be bought independently and sterile. The system was conceived to work with any type of chip, whether commercial or home-made.
If you have complex organ-on-chip experiments, involving more than one channel per chip, the flow splitter keeps things simple. You just need to add one instrument per chip channel.
Parallelisation: Keeping it simple
Recirculation
It is also possible to recirculate media, if you connect the flow splitter to a peristaltic pump, as shown below.
With a peristaltic pump, the outlet of the chips needs to be collected to a reservoir in common and the reservoir should be connected back to the pump.
Applications
Some biological applications of our flow splitter include:
- Gut-on-chip
- Inflammatory bowel disease model
- Blood-brain barrier on chip
- Liver-on-chip
- Lung-on-chip
- Cancer cell migration
- Cell-to-cell interactions
- Metastasis on chip
- And many more!
Specifications
The flow splitter comes in the configuration of 1-to-6 channels. Each channel has an independent control. Each channel has the following specifications:
Components | Technical specifications |
| Calibrated liquids | Aqueous media |
| Flow rates | 0.1 µl/min to 5 mL/min |
| Wetted Material | Glass |
| Sterilization | Not autoclavable, sanitization protocol available |
| Temperature range | Room Temperature to 70 oC, incubator-friendly |
Customize your pack
Our instruments are compatible with standard commercialized chips from different brands.
Our instruments can be added to different setups depending on your specific needs. In this light, our microfluidic specialists will advise you on the best instruments and accessories depending on your needs and will accompany you during the system’s setup.
– Check our other instruments for various applications –
Can I have different flow rates per line?
Not intentionally, the splitter was designed to evenly split the flow so each line has the same flow rate.
What should I do if one line deviates from the desired flow rate?
The flow splitter has the in-built capacity of adjusting flow deviations in case of small variations in each line due to the development of the biological model.
Can I run two flow splitters in the same software?
Yes, you only need one computer and software to run several flow splitters in parallel.
Can it be placed inside the incubator?
Yes, the flow splitter is incubator-friendly.
Funding and Support
