Paper microfluidic devices advantages

Many researchers focus on promoting lab-on-a-chip devices into point-of-care diagnostic products, which feature tiny volume of reagents and samples and portable and on-site detection. However, conventional lab-on-a-chip products are limited by high cost, complex fabrication process, and tedious operation procedures. Therefore, toward a new generation of lab-on-a-chip device, paper microfluidic sensor has been developed, and this novel device has the advantages of rapid fabrication, low cost, and easy to operate, which could have dominant commercial value in the market [8]. 

Paper-based microfluidic sensor has the advantages of low cost, portability, and disposability compared to conventional microchips with glass substrate. Based on paper sensor platform, quantitative analysis of multiple analytes is achieved for disease diagnosis, environmental monitoring, and food inspection. Paper-based microfluidic sensors can be categorized into two families (1) On-demand sensor is an un-pretreated device and requires surface chemical deposition that depends on the type of test sample. (2) Functional sensor has been preloaded with reagents on the detection region and it is ready for immediate test for specific analytes. 

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