Fayetteville, AR – SFC Fluidics, LLC has re­ceived a $100,000 Phase I Small Business Technol­ogy Transfer award from the National Science Foun­dation.  This grant will be used for the initial stages of development of a chip-scale device for liquid chromatography, which is a critical technology for isolating desired components (for example, therapeu­tic proteins) from complex mixtures.

The chromatography chip will use SFC Fluidics’ patented and patents-pending magnetohydrodynamic pumping technology that has been exclusively li­censed by the company from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University of Arkansas.  Magnetohydrodynamic microfluidics technology is based on the principle that if a magnetic field and an electric field are applied at right angles to each other within a channel, electrically conductive fluids will flow through the channel.  In other words, the mag­netic and electric fields create a pumping force that can be controlled to direct fluids along a path.  In this case, the path where the chromatography will take place will be a circular loop.  The ability to pump a fluid around a circular loop means that the path length is, in theory, infinite.  The fluid can be pumped around the path one or any number of times.  If a chemical reaction is occurring in the fluid as it flows through the loop, the length of time of the chemical reaction can be controlled by the number of passes around the loop.  This novel idea can be used to create a uniquely small and low operational cost device suitable for applications ranging from basic research to point-of-care diagnostics.

The research for this Phase I project will be con­ducted as a collaborative effort between SFC Flu­idics and the University of Pennsylvania.  Business development support for SFC Fluidics is being sup­plied by Virtual Incubation Company.  Dr. Calvin Goforth, President of Virtual Incubation says, “One of the important goals of Virtual Incubation is to fos­ter close relationships with our portfolio companies and their partner research institutions.  I am consis­tently impressed with the results of these partner­ships and look forward to continued success in the future.”


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