Development and characterization of microfluidic chips with thermal properties employing magnetic hyperthermia

¹ Group of Non-Linear Physics. Campus Sur. University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
² Galician Center for Mathematical Research and Technology (CITMAga), Santiago de Compostela, Spain
³ Photonics4Life Research Group, Applied Physics Department, Faculty of Physics and Materials Institute - iMATUS, 15782 Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Campus Vida, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
⁴ Nanotechnology and Magnetism Lab — NANOMAG ; Materials Institute - iMATUS ; Health Research Institute – IDIS; Department of Applied Physics; Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.; E-15782 Santiago de Compostela; Spain.

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 22 September 2025

Abstract

There are many fields, such as microfluidics and Organ-on-a-chip technologies, where an optimal setting and control of temperature is necessary. These fields are reaching the forefront of personalised medicine, thus requiring developing more complex systems to adequately mimic any biological condition. On this work we propose the design and fabrication of a microfluidic chip mixing Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) to obtain a device whose temperature could be adjusted by means of magnetic hyperthermia. Characterization of the device was performed with confocal microscopy and microcomputed tomography (micro-CT). Magnetic hyperthermia was employed to estimate the heating curve of the devices and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations enabled to analyse the heat distribution within the device when introducing flow.