Hollow microcapillary arrays in thin plastic films

A plastic film was developed that contains continuous lengths of hollow microcapillary arrays within the film. The resulting flexible film contains anisotropic voidage and offers the potential for both improved performance and application in a number of new areas. The manufacturing process of these microcapillary films (MCF) is bounded by a set of undesirable extrusion process instabilities, however careful post-extrusion drawing of the film enables different hole profile to be achieved and multiple capillaries to be manufactured within a diameter range of 30 to 300 μm. Potential application areas for single sheet films include high-throughput DNA screening, bioprocessing, micro-reactor technology, photonics, and heat-exchange.