Microscale flow and transport simulation for electrokinetic and lab-on-chip applications

Abstract

The proliferation of manufacturing techniques for building micro- and nano-scale fluidic devices has led to a virtual explosion in the development of microscale chemical and biological analysis systems, commonly referred to as integrated microfluidic devices or Labs-on-a-Chip [14]. Application areas into which these systems have penetrated include: DNA analysis [47], separation based detection [10, 36], drug development [59], proteomics [22], fuel processing [31] and a host of others, many of which are extensively covered in this book series. The development of these devices is a highly competitive field and as such researchers typically do not have the luxury of large amounts of time and money to build and test successive prototypes in order to optimize species delivery, reaction speed or thermal performance. Rapid prototyping techniques, such as those developed by Whitesides' group [11, 44], and the shift towards plastics and polymers as a fabrication material of choice [8] have significantly helped to cut cost and development time once a chip design has been selected. The proliferation of manufacturing techniques for building micro- and nano-scale fluidic devices has led to a virtual explosion in the development of microscale chemical and biological analysis systems, commonly referred to as integrated microfluidic devices or Labs-on-a-Chip [14]. Application areas into which these systems have penetrated include: DNA analysis [47], separation based detection [10, 36], drug development [59], proteomics [22], fuel processing [31] and a host of others, many of which are extensively covered in this book series. The development of these devices is a highly competitive field and as such researchers typically do not have the luxury of large amounts of time and money to build and test successive prototypes in order to optimize species delivery, reaction speed or thermal performance. Rapid prototyping techniques, such as those developed by Whitesides' group [11, 44], and the shift towards plastics and polymers as a fabrication material of choice [8] have significantly helped to cut cost and development time once a chip design has been selected. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.