STTR Phase I: Redefining How PDMS Microfluidics Are Made Through Advanced 3D Printing to Facilitate Complex Biological Mechanism Studies

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to enable reliable, high-resolution 3D printing of microfluidic devices using a widely trusted silicone material that is foundational to biomedical research. Microfluidic systems, often called “labs on a chip,” are essential tools for studying diseases, testing new drugs, and developing advanced models that replicate how human tissues function. However, current manufacturing methods are slow, costly, and difficult to scale, limiting access and slowing innovation. This project advances a new manufacturing approach that allows complex microfluidic devices to be produced rapidly without specialized cleanroom facilities, while preserving the well-understood material properties that researchers rely on. By combining advanced modeling with precision fabrication, the technology enhances scientific understanding of how thermally cured polymers behave during additive manufacturing and enables more consistent device performance. The initial commercial focus is the organ-on-a-chip and biomedical research market, where demand is growing rapidly as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies seek better preclinical testing platforms. The business model centers on device sales and supporting software tools, creating recurring revenue while establishing a durable competitive advantage based on material fidelity, automation, and scalability. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project addresses the fundamental challenge of predicting and controlling the thermal curing behavior of polydimethylsiloxane during laser-based additive manufacturing. Unlike thermoplastics or photocurable resins, this silicone material cures through time- and temperature-dependent crosslinking, making feature-scale accuracy highly sensitive to geometry and processing conditions. The research objective is to develop and validate a physics-based computational tool that integrates a high-speed thermal model with an experimentally calibrated curing kinetics model to predict spatial variations in degree of cure and resulting geometry. The proposed work includes three aims: (1) development of a predictive thermal and curing simulation framework capable of processing device-scale geometries in under one hour; (2) experimental calibration and geometric validation of printed test structures using quantitative metrology and surface characterization; and (3) fabrication and functional demonstration of a biologically relevant microfluidic device for extracellular vesicle transport studies. The anticipated technical outcome is an automated, model-guided parameter optimization system that reduces empirical trial-and-error and enables first-pass fabrication within ±15 percent dimensional tolerance. This effort advances the intellectual merit of additive manufacturing by coupling analytical heat transfer solutions with autocatalytic curing kinetics to enable scalable production of high-fidelity microfluidic systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2537925 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Schultz | Institution: PHASE, INC., CORNELIUS, NC | Award Amount: $304,761 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2537925 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2537925.html