State of the art: PDMS surface treatment for the hydrophilization and hydrophobicity

Abstract

As advancement in nano laboratory on chip is moving at the speed of light, the Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is frequently used to build microfluidic devices PDMS due to its ease of handling , easy fabrication, transparency name a few but PDMS is inherently hydrophobic; however, the surface can be temporarily or permanently rendered hydrophilic by exposing the surface to various treatment techniques. Present work tries to understand the start of the current art by studying recent advancement on hydrophilization and hydrophobic recovery of PDMS by oxygen plasma, thermal aging technique and effects of functional group modifications on the conformational behaviour of chains at the interface with brief presentation on chemistry of the creation of silanol groups on the active surface and presentation of brief summary of some important properties of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS).