Microfluidic Devices: Unseen Precision in Consistent Flow Technology - Essay Sample

Introduction

The emergence of microfluidic devices in recent years has brought about unseen precision in the consistent flow technology, thus resulting in new abilities to open up to a broader range of areas from biological evaluation as well as a chemical synthesis to optics and data technology (Andersson, & van den Berg, 2003). The available microfluidic devices are made from polymers, metals, glass, silicon and other material to manipulate the small volumes of fluids through geometrically managed situations, which are always separated into different sub-units to include reactors, detectors, and mixers (Capretto et al. 2011). The application of microfluidic devices in organic synthesis provides a range of merits in the field which are owed to some available instrumental features. It is characterized by the liminal flow or the others that have a lower Reynolds number, which assists in elimination and mixing in the system that may result from turbulence caused by the fluids (Andersson, & van den Berg, 2003).

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Microfluidics has been established in biological study arenas to include cell culture study, polymerase chain reaction diagnostic tools as well as the mimicking of the whole organ system. Its relation and application to chemistry are far more recent and less established. Nevertheless, it might be the issue; there are several benefits of the use of microfluidics in chemistry, fundamentally based on the scale-driven processes of mass transfers and heat (Andersson, & van den Berg, 2003). The reduced lengths scales lead to increased surface areas compared to the volume ratio, which critically enhances a greater field for thermo homogeneity all over the reaction areas and substantial heat transfers. However, the luminal flow model may lead to diffusion- regulated reactions of compounds at the point of interconnection of two fluid streams (Andersson, & van den Berg, 2003). In this paper, a critical overview of the use of microfluidics in chemistry, including the benefits it brings as well as its applicability in the industries and academia. It will also provide a brief highlight of the demerits and challenges surrounding it. The application of microfluidics in various areas is instrumental and helpful due to the advantages it has to the users.

Advantages of Microfluidics

Small Reagent Volumes for Micro-Reactor and Footprint Are Needed

As people might anticipate when operating with substantially low volumes of materials, as it is the case while working with microfluidics, a substantial amount of resources can be saved for other uses. Microfluidics assists in saving the volumes used, and this is how saving comes in as opposed to instances where bulk volumes are used for chemical reactions (Elvira et al. 2013). Due to the small quantities used in microfluidics, it becomes more economical as would be the case working with reagents that are not adequately available and those that are expensive. Additionally, it helps when the chemical needed for the reactions are for the reasons for obtaining information instead of synthesizing a functional end product (Elvira et al. 2013).

Due to the precise and expected status of micro-reactors can facilitate the acquisition of almost a similar amount of information as it might be necessary to obtain more data that the bulk systems by using smaller quantities of reagents (Elvira et al. 2013). The small size of a micro-reactor used in this model also offers practical merit of having a smaller footprint than the standard flow reactors and further lower than a macro-scale reactor. It is for the benefits of having smaller heat-transfer devices that are integral for a more comfortable microfluidic heat exchange (Elvira et al. 2013). Due to these reasons, these devices are more useful and efficient as compared to those that nave high heat exchange as they also have a higher risk of breaking down and failing to work appropriately. Microfluidics only uses small volumes of reagents as opposed to other gadgets that existed before, and this makes them efficient and cheap as they save on the cost.

Microfluidic Devices Use the Physical and Chemical Properties of Liquids and Gases

Microfluidic devices offer a wide range of advantages over the conventionally designed systems. Microfluidics offers the chemists a chance to analyze and use various types of matters as chemicals and reagents, which offer a decrease in the amount of looking for specific reagents as it was the case with the conventional systems (Elvira et al. 2013). The microfluidic systems offer three alternatives for use and these alternatives include liquids, and gases and not only one specific element hence reducing the global fee for applications. Additionally, many operations can be carried out simultaneously an aspect that is facilitated by their small and compact size which reduces significantly the amount of time that an experiment takes as compared to the older systems where trials took long hence it was impossible to conduct more than one operation at the same time (Elvira et al. 2013). Microfluidic systems also offer a range of excellent information in terms of quality and availability of instrumental parameters regulators which provide an opportunity for process automation as well as preserving the performance and efficiency while at use or during chemical experiments of different types (Elvira et al. 2013).

Microfluidic systems have the capacity to both analyses of samples and processes with insignificant sample handling. Microfluidic systems are complex to facilitate the incorporation of automation, which allows the users an opportunity to produce multi-step reactions that do not require sophisticate levels of expertise and experience as well as vast functionalities. These systems can conduct operations of a wide range, which may range from detecting poisons and other toxins to DNA sequence analysis as well as creating inkjets for printers and in the organic solar cells (Zhang et al. 20106). Due to the ability of these systems to carry out various operations, make them unique and useful for scientists and other users.

Micro-Reactors Are Selective

The application of microfluidics devices in organic solar cells offers the user an advantage of the selectivity of the micro-reactors. The micro-reactors are selective as may be needed by an operator during an operation with them. The proton transfer membrane fuel cells are excellent examples for portable sources of energy with a rapid response to changes while being intact due to their ability to offer high power density (Beebe et al. 2012). Hydrogen is part of the fuel for the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) and can be gathered in a place to contain transportation and safety hazards.

A way of producing hydrogen for these cells is by heating methanol to obtain its steam to reform in a microfluidic reactor where an endothermic chemical reaction where the highest efficiency occurs between 250-300 degrees Celsius (Beebe et al. 2012). Therefore, during chemical and biological reactions, several products are obtained from the reagents sued in the micro-reactors and the conditions for the reaction such as temperature. Microfluidics is therefore efficient as they provide controls over some of these conditions to include time and individual compounds. Microfluidic systems can, therefore, facilitate production by a specific reaction, thus are selectively produced with high degrees of accuracy (Beebe et al. 2012). Hence, microfluidic systems are instrumental in organic solar cell production.

Microfluidics Are Safe and Rapid in Reactions

In organic solar cell production, safety is critical as some of the reagents used are hazardous to the environment, and critical care must be taken when reacting to them. Additionally, these are some of the rapid reactions hence require equipment that would provide rapidness. Thus, regarding the time that should be taken for these reactions, these systems can carry out the reactions within shorter times as compared to the conventional methods. Some limitations surround any possible comparison between the micro-reactors and bulk reactors as the microfluidic reactors are way more effective than the bulk reactors. Bulk reactors, which can also be used in organic solar cells, would take substantially more time as compared to the micro-reactors, which takes significantly less time (Chen et al. 2013). The time that bulk reactors may endure for a reaction to be complete is more than the necessary time that is required for such a reaction to reach equilibrium. Micro-reactors, therefore, serve the operator an advantage as they are more naturally optimized and can be monitored closely not to take more time than necessary to get a reactions' completion point. In the production of organic solar cells, microfluidic systems are said to possess a more magnificent space-time feature than the bulk reactors (Elvira et al. 2013). Hence, the rate of mass-restricted reactions would add on the trivial elements of microfluidic systems because effects of diffusion are dominant and eventually may have a similar substantial influence of increasing chemical process rates. Endothermic reactions involved in organic solar cells can be safely operated using the microfluidic systems due to the large surface area to the volume ration as well as the rapid heat exchange feature of the microfluidic devices (Beebe et al. 2012).

Microfluidic Devices are Environmental Friendly

The process of producing organic solar cells might involve the use of several chemical components, which might be detrimental to the safety of the environment. Therefore much care must be taken into considerations. The use of convention systems for such processes might lead to contamination of the environment, which might lead to other effects. Microfluidic devices are properly designed to take care of the environment, and this ensures that any reactions that are being done using these devices are safely conducted without jeopardizing the environment and the health of the people with reagents (Chen et al. 2013). Therefore, microfluidic systems are environmentally friendly and, as a result, they are recommended for such reactions, and this is another advantage of using microfluidic devices.

In as much as microfluidic systems are have several advantages to it, it also has a handful of limitations to it. However, upon weighing the advantages and disadvantages, the pros weigh more, and hence the system is one of a kind that offers a wide range of benefits and solutions to the users who operate and are planning to start using them. Some of the disadvantages that one may consider microfluidic systems in organic solar cells may include the inability to conduct multi-phasic reactions (Dittrich, & Manz, 2006). Multi-phasic reactions are those that are between solid, gases, or liquids; this is due to the high surface area compared to volume ratios, which present complications of reagents clogging, especially when they are solid (Dittrich, & Manz, 2006). Other disadvantages include the domination of function by microfluidic chip materials that may be used and reduced production volume capacity (Dittrich, & Manz, 2006).

Conclusion

Overall, microfluidics has spearheaded significant advancements in organic solar cells since it was innovated back in the 1990s and has had fulfillment to the operates who use the system. It has been an excellent system that has facilitated improvements in operations and experiments. The system has gifted its users with a baggage of interesting advantages such as the ones mentioned earlier. Considering is functionality based on the micro-scale model, micro-reactors have their large surface area to volume ratio feature, which creates room for heat...