• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.116-125
• /
• 2016

Background: Microfluidics is of considerable importance in food and agricultural industries. Microfluidics processes low volumes of fluids in channels with extremely small dimensions of tens of micrometers. It enables the miniaturization of analytical devices and reductions in cost and turnaround times. This allows automation, high-throughput analysis, and processing in food and agricultural applications. Purpose: This review aims to provide information on the applications of microfluidics in the agro-food sector to overcome limitations posed by conventional technologies. Results: Microfluidics contributes to medical diagnosis, biological analysis, drug discovery, chemical synthesis, biotechnology, gene sequencing, and ecology. Recently, the applications of microfluidics in food and agricultural industries have increased. A few examples of these applications include food safety analysis, food processing, and animal production. This study examines the fundamentals of microfluidics including fabrication, control, applications, and future trends of microfluidics in the agro-food sector. Conclusions: Future research efforts should focus on developing a small portable platform with modules for fluid handling, sample preparation, and signal detection electronics.

• BioChip Journal
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.257-267
• /
• 2018

Inertial microfluidics has attracted significant attention in recent years due to its superior benefits of high throughput, precise control, simplicity, and low cost. Many inertial microfluidic applications have been demonstrated for physiological sample processing, clinical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring and cleanup. In this review, we discuss the fundamental mechanisms and principles of inertial migration and Dean flow, which are the basis of inertial microfluidics, and provide basic scaling laws for designing the inertial microfluidic devices. This will allow end-users with diverse backgrounds to more easily take advantage of the inertial microfluidic technologies in a wide range of applications. A variety of recent applications are also classified according to the structure of the microchannel: straight channels and curved channels. Finally, several future perspectives of employing fluid inertia in microfluidic-based cell sorting are discussed. Inertial microfluidics is still expected to be promising in the near future with more novel designs using various shapes of cross section, sheath flows with different viscosities, or technologies that target micron and submicron bioparticles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.08a
• /
• pp.143.1-143.1
• /
• 2013

최근 실 기반 microfluidics device는 많은 응용 가능성을 보이고 있다. 예를 들면 의료진단, 환경측정 그리고 식품 안정성 분석 등의 분야에서 사용이 가능하다. 이러한 가능성을 가진 반면 해결해야 하는 문제점들이 존재한다. 실 한가닥에 Capillary force에 의해 빨려 올라오는 액체의 속도를 조절하기 힘들다는 것이다. 속도 조절은 실 기반 microfluidics에서는 매우 중요한 역할을 하는 것이므로 이는 굉장히 치명적일 수 있다. 본 그룹은 울의 젖음성을 변화시킴으로써 그 속도를 조절하였다. 울은 본래 소수성의 성질을 가졌으며 본 그룹의 표면처리를 통하면 친수성을로 바뀌는 것을 확인하였다. 표면처리의 종류와 정도에 따라 친수성을 띄는 정도가 달라지는 것을 확인하였다. 결과적으로는 표면처리에 따라 서로 액체를 빨아들이는 속도가 다른 울들을 microfluidics device에 응용할 수 있다는 결론을 지을 수 있다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.361-362
• /
• 2009

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.343-344
• /
• 2009

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.37 no.6
• /
• pp.497-502
• /
• 2014

Microfluidics can provide unique experimental tools to visualize the development of neural structures within a microscale device, which is followed by guidance of neurite growth in the axonal isolation compartment. We utilized microfluidics technology to monitor the differentiation and migration of neural cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). We co-cultured hESCs with PA6 stromal cells, and isolated neural rosette-like structures, which subsequently formed neurospheres in suspension culture. Tuj1-positive neural cells, but not nestin-positive neural precursor cells (NPCs), were able to enter the microfluidics grooves (microchannels), suggesting that neural cell-migratory capacity was dependent upon neuronal differentiation stage. We also showed that bundles of axons formed and extended into the microchannels. Taken together, these results demonstrated that microfluidics technology can provide useful tools to study neurite outgrowth and axon guidance of neural cells, which are derived from human embryonic stem cells.

• International Journal of Vascular Biomedical Engineering
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 2006

Microsystems create new opportunities for conventional cell analysis by combining microfluidics and flow cytometry. This article describes recent developments in conventional flow cytometers and related microfluidic flow cytometers to detect, analyze, and sort cells or particles. Flow cytometry strongly consisted of fluidics, optics and electronics requires a large space to equip various components, which are mostly the fluidic components such as compressor, fluid handling system. Adopting microfluidics into flow cytometry enables volume- and power-efficient, inexpensive and flexible analysis of particulate samples. In this paper, we review various efforts that take advantage of novel techniques to build microfluidic cell analysis systems with high-speed analytical capability. Highly integrated microfluidic cytometry shows great promise for basic biomedical and pharmaceutical research, and robust and portable point-of-care devices could be used in clinical settings.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
• /
• 2002.04b
• /
• pp.313-315
• /
• 2002

최단 경로 문제는 통신 강이나 로봇 경로 계획등과 같은 다양한 응용분야에 적용이 가능한 벤치 마크 문제로서 많은 효율적인 알고리즘들이 개발되어 왔다 그러나 기존의 방법들이 고전적인 컴퓨팅 모델에 기반하여 설계된 반면에 본 논문에서는 최단 경로 문제를 풀기 위하여 microfluidics기반의 MEMS 기술을 사용한 새로운 형태의 계산 모델(fluidic computing)을 제 시 하고 실험, 분석하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2011.06a
• /
• pp.197-198
• /
• 2011

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.32 no.12
• /
• pp.1102-1106
• /
• 2008

Microfluidics deals with the behavior, precise control and manipulation of fluids at a micro scale. It has become increasingly prevalent in various applications such as biomedical applications (diagnostics, therapeutics, and cell/tissue engineering), inkjet head, and fuel cells etc. The issue of inspection and characterization of microfluidics has emerged as a major consideration in design, fabrication, and detection of microfluidic devices. In this paper, we characterize a diffusion based mixing in Y-microchannel using a fluorescent optical scanner based on a DVD pick-up module, which is widely used in optical storages. Using fluorescent dye, we measure the fluorescent intensity that represents the mixing patterns in Y-microchannel. We also compare these experimental results with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation ones. It is shown that the proposed optical scanner can be used as an alternative measurement system with high performance and cost-effectiveness, compared to conventional optical tools such as epifluorescent microscopes using high resolution CCD camera and confocal microscopes with photomultiplier (PMT) detectors.