Microfluidizer advantages

For catalyst testing, conventional small tubular reactors are commonly employed today [2]. However, although the reactors are small, this is not the case for their environment. Large panels of complex fluidic handling manifolds, containment vessels, and extended analytical equipment encompass the tube reactors. Detection is often the bottleneck, since it is still performed in a serial fashion. To overcome this situation, there is the vision, ultimately, to develop PC-card-sized chip systems with integrated microfluidic, sensor, control, and reaction components [2]. The advantages are less space, reduced waste, and fewer utilities. 

When elution chromatography is used in both dimensions, the valve configurations are similar for the different column combinations. However, when CE is utilized as the second dimension, other types of interfaces not based on valves have been implemented with unique advantages. These and the microfluidic implementation of sampling systems for chip-based two-dimensional separations will be discussed below. 

A novel 24-channel HPLC by Nanostream called Veloce was introduced at PITTCON 04. The column cassette contains 24 parallel microbore columns. The eluted samples are detected by a 24-channel UV filter photometer. The advantage of such a system is that it allows one to work with multiple samples simultaneously. Other interesting systems for parallel HPLC were those introduced by Eksigent, based on microfluidic flow control, and Sepiatec GmbH, which allows the processing of 75 multiple-well plates. 

One way to ease any difficulties that may arise in fabricating a membrane, especially in design configurations that are not planar, is to go membraneless. Recent reports take advantage of the laminar flow innate to microfluidic reactors ° to develop membraneless fuel cells. The potential of the fuel cell is established at the boundary between parallel (channel) flows of the two fluids customarily compartmentalized in the fuel cell as fuel (anolyte) and oxidant (catholyte). Adapting prior redox fuel cell chemistry using a catholyte of V /V and an anolyte of Ferrigno et al. obtained 35 mA cmr at... 

In order to obtain the advantage of other high-throughput and combinatorial techniques in microfluidic reactors, it is critical that other processing and measurement... 

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