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In fluid rheological studies, viscosity measurement is one of the most significant phenomena leveraged in a variety of studies. Viscometers are broadly employed in a wide range of sensing and monitoring applications, such as biochemical diagnostics and numerous adulteration detections. Therefore, it is pertinent to develop a miniaturized, automated, and cost-effective device that can measure the fluid viscosity from small samples. In this work, for fluid viscosity measurements, a new low-cost automated electro-microfluidic viscometer (EMV) has been fabricated on a hydrophilic laser-induced graphene (LIG) platform with integrated electronics to monitor viscosity from a small sample of fluid of $1.5~\mu \text{L}$. The principle of operation of the fabricated device is based on the modified Hagen–Poiseuille equation, which imitates the Ostwald viscometer. Under laminar flow, the proposed standalone and portable device automatically evaluates the travel time of fluid with high accuracy. This travel time was used to obtain viscosity accurately of various fluids, such as water, milk, and acetic acid, with a minimum error of up to ±1.08%. Overall, the device provides a pathway for a convenient, robust, and plug-and-play platform for different applications, including various adulteration monitoring and biosensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several miniaturized viscometers, or microviscometers, have been developed exploiting numerous rapid prototyping techniques. Among them, paper microstrips, famously known as microfluidic paper-based analytical devices ($\mu $ PADs), have become popular due to their cost-efficacy, simple fabrication, fast response, and easily disposable. Many fabrication methods are existing to develop paper microstrips. Herein, an alternative fabrication method is proposed where fused deposition modeling (FDM)-based 3-D printer (3DP) has been employed using polycaprolactone (PCL) filament. F, image processing has been utilized to measure viscosity in such microfluidic domain. Viscosity was calculated by measuring the time taken by the fluid to cover a fixed length between two spots in the microchannel based on the programed and color-coded regions-of-interest. The image processing program was developed considering the change in the gray scale in the virtual region of interests (ROIs) in the microchannel during the fluid flow in the paper microstrips. A 3-D printed handheld platform, containing raspberry pi with on-board camera and display, was developed to execute the image processing and automate the entire work flow. In the proposed device, the accuracy was measured to be >92%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]