Development of Microfluidic Components for Micro Total Analysis Systems

Microfluidic device is capable of reducing amount of sample consumption, shortening the analysis time, and miniaturizing instruments. Many applications of microfluidic devices have been developed not only in chemical analysis but also in medical diagnosis, and the food and agricultural industries. Electrophoresis or chromatography in a microfluidic device has improved the speed, reproducibility and separation resolution. Some of them have been integrated with complex experimental functionality on a small substrate, of which concept is known as micro total analysis systems. To build up a system, microfluidic components that carry out an experimental functionality in a microfluidic channel and novel technology to support the developments of microfluidic components are indispensable. In this review, three-dimensional (3D) fabrication by thiol-ene quick reaction, sample injection with an inkjet ejector, and molecular detection based on electroosmosis are focused biefly. The 3D fabrication realizes to make various 3D microstructures that conventional fabrication method cannot make without specific equipment. The sample injection by using inkjet technology can apply tiny amount of sample solution into multiple microfluidic channel on some precise spots, which leads to rapid analysis with high accuracy. The electroosmosis-based molecular detection indicates a possibility to develop a new portable device without any peripherals for detection or pretreatment for specimen labeling.