Simple microfluidic devices for in situ detection of water contamination: a state-of-art review

Abstract

Water security is an important global issue that is pivotal in the pursuit of sustainable resources for future generations. It is a multifaceted concept that combines water availability with the quality of the water’s chemical, biological, and physical characteristics to ensure its suitability and safety. Water quality is a focal aspect of water security. Quality index data are determined and provided via laboratory testing using expensive instrumentation with high maintenance costs and expertise. Due to increased practices in this sector that can compromise water quality, innovative technologies such as microfluidics are necessary to accelerate the timeline of test procedures. Microfluidic technology demonstrates sophisticated functionality in various applications due to the chip’s miniaturization system that can control the movement of fluids in tiny amounts and be used for onsite testing when integrated with smart applications. This review aims to highlight the basics of microfluidic technology starting from the component system to the properties of the chip’s fabricated materials. The published research on developing microfluidic sensor devices for monitoring chemical and biological contaminants in water is summarized to understand the obstacles and challenges and explore future opportunities for advancement in water quality monitoring.

Categorising hybrid material microfluidic devices

“…Prior to the advent of microfluidics as a defined field, micro-sized channels were often contained within components of scientific and engineering instruments mostly unrelated to microfluidic applications (Ren et al, 2013;Convery and Gadegaard, 2019). Currently when compared with early microfluidics, microchannels with various geometries are used for many different applications and have huge potential for use within biomedical science (Ramachandraiah et al, 2017;David et al, 2019;Lu et al, 2019;Pritchard et al, 2019;Guzniczak et al, 2020;Xie et al, 2022), industrial processing (Estrada-Osorio et al, 2024;Jayan et al, 2024;Wang et al, 2024;Yi et al, 2024), environmental research (Hill et al, 2022;AlMashrea et al, 2024;Du and Yang, 2024;Sun et al, 2024) and increasingly reaching into other fields (Apoorva et al, 2024;Lei et al, 2024;Reyes et al, 2024). The manufacturing of these microchannels relies upon the use of appropriate techniques, equipment, and materials to produce microfluidic devices consistently and accurately (Ren et al, 2013;Gale et al, 2018;Scott and Ali, 2021;Akbari et al, 2023).…”