Towards microfluidic assisted reversible compartmentation and the subsequent manageable separation of DNA oligonucleotides in microchip environment, we successfully tested a chemical system based on a controllable gelation of hydrogels in the chemical microprocessor chip. Therefore we used a hydrogel mixture (Pluronic F87 : F127 = 2:1), which is fluid at room temperature and forms a gel at higher temperatures about 37°C.
The gelation of Pluronic hydrogel is reversible by cooling down to 10°C. After the separation process is finished we started the flow and washed out the separated material. A second heating step leads to an additional gelation and the next separation can start.