Dispensing well plate (DWP): a highly integrated nanoliter dispensing system

This paper reports on the analysis of the Dispensing Well Plate (DWP) micro dispenser. The DWP device is able to deliver simultaneously hundreds to thousands of different liquids in the range of 10 to 100 nL at a very high level of system integration. The presented prototype with 96 parallel dispensing channels comprising a fixed dosage volume of 50 nL each has been manufactured using a new low cost production process based on SU-8. The dispensing dynamics of the DWP prototype is studied on basis of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations and experimental data. Critical parameters for fabrication and design rules for performance optimisation are identified and quantified, such as the nozzle shape and the fluidic resistance of the capillary channel.