Rapid prototyping of microfluidic chips for dead-volume-free MS coupling

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Microfluidics
• Mass Spectrometry

Background:

• Microfluidic systems are crucial for lab-on-a-chip devices.
• Integrating microfluidics with mass spectrometry (MS) often faces challenges with dead volume.
• Existing prototyping methods can be expensive and technically demanding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a fast, straightforward, and inexpensive method for prototyping microfluidic chips.
• To achieve dead-volume-free hyphenation of microfluidic systems with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS).
• To demonstrate the versatility of the developed prototyping approach for various lab-on-a-chip applications.

Main Methods:

• Development of a rapid prototyping approach based on liquid-phase lithography.
• Seamless integration of capillaries as electrospray emitters into microfluidic chips.
• Manufacturing of microfluidic chips with low technical demands suitable for any laboratory.

Main Results:

• Successful creation of microfluidic chips enabling dead-volume-free coupling to ESI-MS.
• Demonstration of the method's inexpensive and reliable nature.
• Validation of the approach for chip-electrochromatography-MS and continuous-flow synthesis with MS detection.

Conclusions:

• The presented liquid-phase lithography method offers accessible and rapid prototyping of microfluidic chips for MS applications.
• The technique overcomes dead-volume issues, enhancing analytical capabilities.
• The versatile prototyping method supports diverse lab-on-a-chip applications, including analytical separations and microreactor synthesis.