Microstructured Fluidic Devices

A microstructured fluidic device that is used for conducting chemical reactions is called a microreactor. A microreactor is a reactor containing microstructures for chemical reactions. The size of the microstructure inside a microreactor usually ranges from several micrometers to several hundred micrometers. Various types of microstructured fluidic devices, such as microchip reactors and microtube reactors, have been developed for chemical reactions. Micromixers often serve as microreactors because reactions take place immediately after mixing. In some cases, external energies, such as thermal, photo, and electric energies, are provided in the microspace to promote the chemical reactions. For such purposes, special microreactors have been developed. 

For some years now microreactors [1, 2] have been attracting the interest of the scientific community. Since microfabrication technology made microstructured fluidic devices available they have been studied for their scope and limitations. There have also been attempts to introduce such systems into the industrial... 

Keywords i DMFC 3-D microstructures Microelectrodes Micro fluidic devices Microvalve... 

Modularity is only needed where micro reaction technology is really demanded i.e. for micro fluidic modules. The motto of the developers is thus in analogy with the credo of the authors of this book, not to make microstructured devices as small as possible as many tools as necessary, not as many as possible . 

The transparency of glass allows optical inspection or detection of fluidic flow/reaction in microfluidic devices. It also facilitates aligiunent of microstructores in glass with microstructures in silicon. 

When beads are magnetics, the main advantage comes from its easy manipulation by magnetic fields. This fact eliminates the need for physical retention microstructures allowing the beads to be immobilized and released at different stages and desired areas of the assay. In the work of Martinez et al. °" a micro fluidic immunoassay (ELISA) for rapid and sensitive quantification of ethinylestadiol (EE2) in river water samples was developed. The assay was conducted by immobilization of the specific antibodies onto the surface of magnetic particles. These modified beads were allowed to react with the samples outside of the microfluidic devices before injection and retention in the channel for subsequent assay steps. Electrochemical... 

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