Hydrogen peroxide concentration by distillation of a ternary liquid solution in microfluidics

Abstract

Consulta en la Biblioteca ETSI Industriales (Riunet)

[EN] During the decade of 1960, the microtechnology started to be developed, especially in the field of electronics. In fact, researchers found that microelectronics reduce costs while increase reliability, functionality and efficiency. After that success, microtechnology spread among several fields, as micromechanics or microfluidics. Microfluidics field started to be important in the decade of 1980 with the development of inkjet cartridges. But it was during the decade of 1990 where lab-on-achip devices began to gain importance. At the beginning, microfluidics were used for chemical and biological analysis [1]. Considering the success of this techniques, researchers started to implement non-analytical processes using the lab-on-a-chip technology. Since then, the microfluidic field has been growing very fast. Microfluidics is a growing field which studies the behaviour of small volumes of fluids constrained to a small scale. Microfluidics have countless applications in many different fields as biology, chemistry, physics or any engineering speciality. Lab-on-a-chip are microfluidic devices that integrate, in a single chip, several types of laboratory processes, as reactors or separation processes. Microfluidic approach has several advantages as efficient mass transfer and energy transfer, and safer operation (small volumes are used) [2]. In addition, the development of the soft-lithography and the use of polydimethylsiloxane has improved the simplicity, versatility and velocity of microfabrication, and at the same time, has reduced considerably the fabrication costs [3].