A Self-Regulating Microfluidic Valve Based on Deformable Porous Media

This paper reports, for the first time, the design, fabrication, and validation of passive, self-regulating microfluidic valves based on deformable porous media. The valve's operating principle relies on flow-induced compaction. As the driving pressure increases, the porous material compresses, which in turn increases its hydraulic resistance. This mechanism results in a limiting flow rate as pressure increases. We present a complete development approach, including a sacrificial templating method for fabricating poroelastic media with tunable properties. Furthermore, we develop and validate a predictive poroelastic model that accurately forecasts the device's complete pressure-flow rate relationship including the asymptotic flow saturation using only independently measured material properties as inputs.