Hydrodynamic injection for microchip electrophoresis: Development of an innovative passive system

Abstract

The world is facing challenges in terms of environmental sustainability and rising costs. In this context, miniaturized equipment such as microfluidic devices can be used to manipulate small volumes of fluids in micrometer-sized channels incorporating multiple components such as pumps, valves and mixers. Due to their high flexibility, these devices can provide sustainable alternatives to traditional platforms. The present study focuses on the design of a user-friendly and reliable microfluidic capillary electrophoresis chip for pharmaceutical applications. To meet pharmaceutical requirements in terms of quantification performance and overcome the injection variability usually observed with such microfluidic systems, a reliable and reproducible design for hydrodynamic injection using passive valves has been developed. It has been successfully used for synthetic cathinone analysis.

Keywords

• Microchip electrophoresis
• Hydrodynamic injection
• Laser induced fluorescence
• Capillary valve
• Synthetic cathinones