High production volume definition

In such a flexible definition of engineering thermoplastics, the exact list and number of materials and/or families of materials will vary with the viewpoint of the specialist who prepares the list. For purposes of illustration, let us consider 13 thermoplastics, developed during the past decade or two, which are produced in small to moderate volume at medium to high prices, and are finding growing application in products where their superior properties justify their higher costs. Most of these descriptions of engineering thermoplastics are taken from the manufacturers bulletins and unpublished discussions with manufacturers and users of these materials. 

In this chapter, solutions for highly parallel assay processing are presented. These are not per se microfluidic platforms by our definition, since they do not offer a set of easily combined unit operations and are quite inflexible in terms of assay layout. They are nevertheless presented here, since the small reaction volumes per assay and partly the liquid control systems are based on microfluidic platforms. The significant market for repetitive analyses, which allows high development costs for proprietary, optimized systems, does not necessarily require a platform approach, but can benefit from microfluidic production technologies and liquid handling systems. 

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