Advances In Microfluidics

Responding to the need for an affordable, easy-to-read textbook that introduces microfluidics to undergraduate and postgraduate students, this concise book will provide a broad overview of the important theoretical and practical aspects of microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip, as well as its applications.

Microfluidics have aroused a new surge of interest in recent years in environmental and energy areas, and inspired novel applications to tackle the worldwide challenges for sustainable development. This book aims to present readers with a valuable compendium of significant advances in applying the multidisciplinary microfluidic technologies to address energy and environmental problems in a plethora of areas such as environmental monitoring and detection, new nanofluid application in traditional mechanical manufacturing processes, development of novel biosensors, and thermal management. This book will provide a new perspective to the understanding of the ever-growing importance of microfluidics.

Microfluidics and nanofluids are rapidly growing technologies of tremendous potential and benefits. This book features a spectrum of topics on these emerging technologies that include microfluidic applications, mass production of chips, flow sensing approaches, fabrication of microfluidic channels using the micromilling process, application of micromixers for wastewater treatment and life cycle assessment, solar thermal conversion of plasmonic nanofluids, and liquid cooling, as well as carbon capture utilization and storage using nanocomposite and nanofluids. The book is intended to provide useful information and guidance to a wide variety of people including students, researchers, engineers, and manufacturers who are involved or interested in these technologies.

Advances in Microfluidics provides a current snapshot of the field of microfluidics as it relates to a variety of sub-disciplines. The chapters have been divided into three sections: Fluid Dynamics, Technology, and Applications, although a number of the chapters contain aspects that make them applicable to more than one section. It is hoped that this book will serve as a useful resource for recent entrants to the field as well as for established practitioners.

Increasing innovations and applications make microfluidics a versatile choice for researchers in many disciplines. This book consists of multiple review chapters that aim to cover recent advances and new applications of microfluidics in biology, electronics, energy, and materials sciences. It provides comprehensive views of various aspects of microfluidics ranging from fundamentals of fabrication, flow control, and droplet manipulation to the most recent exploration in emerging areas such as material synthesis, imaging and novel spectroscopy, and marriage with electronics. The chapters have many illustrations showcasing exciting results. This book should be useful for those who are eager to learn more about microfluidics as well as researchers who want to pick up new concepts and developments in this fast-growing field.

Since fossil fuels suffer from dangerous side effects for the environment and their resources are limited, bioenergy attracted many attentions in various aspects as an alternative solution. Therefore, increasing number of researches are conducted every year and the processes updated frequently to make them more economic and industrially beneficial. Advances in Bioenergy and Microfluidic Applications reviews recent developments in this field and covers various advanced bio-applications, which rarely are reviewed elsewhere. The chapters are started from converting biomass to valuable products and continues with applications of biomass in water-treatment, novel sorbents and membranes, refineries, microfluidic devices and etc. The book covers various routes for gaining bioenergy from biomass. Their composition, carbon contents, heat production capacities and other important factors are reviewed in details in different chapters. Then, the processes for upgrading them directly and indirectly (using metabolic engineering and ultrasonic devices) to various fuels are explained. Each process is reviewed both technically and economically and the product analysis is given. Besides, the effect of various catalysts on increasing selectivity and productivity are taken into account. Biofuels are compared with fossil fuels and challenges in the way of bioenergy production are explained. Moreover, advanced bio-applications in membranes, adsorption, waste water treatment, microfluidic devices and etc. are introduced. This book provides a good insight about such bioprocesses and microfluidics devices for researchers, students, professors and related departments and industries that care about energy resources and curious about recent advances in related methods and technologies. Despite other books which review biomass chemistry and conversion, the current book emphasize on the application of biomass in the mentioned areas. Therefore, one can gain a better and more comprehensive insight by reading the book. Describes energy production from biomass, biomass conversion, their advantages and limitations Describes the application of biomass in membranes, sorbents, water-treatment, refineries, and microfluidic devices Offers a future outlook of bioenergy production and possibility to apply in the industries

Microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip have, in recent years, come to the forefront in diagnostics and detection. At point-of-care, in the emergency room, and at the hospital bed or GP clinic, lab-on-a-chip offers the potential to rapidly detect time-critical and life-threatening diseases such as sepsis and bacterial meningitis. Furthermore, portable and user-friendly diagnostic platforms can enable disease diagnostics and detection in resource-poor settings where centralised laboratory facilities may not be available. At point-of-use, microfluidics and lab-on-chip can be applied in the field to rapidly identify plant pathogens, thus reducing the need for damaging broad spectrum pesticides while also reducing food losses. Microfluidics can also be applied to the continuous monitoring of water quality and can support policy-makers and protection agencies in protecting the environment. Perhaps most excitingly, microfluidics also offers the potential to enable entirely new diagnostic tests that cannot be implemented using conventional laboratory tools. Examples of microfluidics at the frontier of new medical diagnostic tests include early detection of cancers through circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and highly sensitive genetic tests using droplet-based digital PCR. This Special Issue on “Advances in Microfluidics Technology for Diagnostics and Detection” aims to gather outstanding research and to carry out comprehensive coverage of all aspects related to microfluidics in diagnostics and detection.

This book provides a well-focused and comprehensive overview of novel technologies involved in advanced microfluidics based diagnosis via various types of prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers. This authors examine microfluidics based diagnosis in the biomedical field as an upcoming field with extensive applications. It provides a unique approach and comprehensive technology overview for diagnosis management towards early stages of various bioanalytes via cancer diagnostics diabetes, alzheimer disease, toxicity in food products, brain and retinal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and bacterial infections etc. Thus, this book would encompass a combinatorial approach of medical science, engineering and biomedical technology. The authors provide a well-focused and comprehensive overview of novel technologies involved in advanced microfluidics based diagnosis via various types of prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers. Moreover, this book contains detailed description on the diagnosis of novel techniques. This book would serve as a guide for students, scientists, researchers, and microfluidics based point of care technologies via smart diagnostics and to plan future research in this valuable field.