Spatial varying profiling of air PM constituents using paper-based microfluidics

Microfluidics in environmental analysis: advancements, challenges, and future prospects for rapid and efficient monitoring

Microfluidic devices have emerged as advantageous tools for detecting environmental contaminants due to their portability, ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and rapid response capabilities. These devices have wide-ranging applications in environmental monitoring of air, water, and soil matrices, and have also been applied to agricultural monitoring. Although several previous reviews have explored microfluidic devices' utility, this paper presents an up-to-date account of the latest advancements in this field for environmental monitoring, looking back at the past five years. In this review, we discuss devices for prominent contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides, nutrients, microorganisms, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), etc. We cover numerous detection methods (electrochemical, colorimetric, fluorescent, etc.) and critically assess the current state of microfluidic devices for environmental monitoring, highlighting both their successes and limitations. Moreover, we propose potential strategies to mitigate these limitations and offer valuable insights into future research and development directions.

Research advances in microfluidic collection and detection of virus, bacterial, and fungal bioaerosols

Bioaerosols are airborne suspensions of fine solid or liquid particles containing biological substances such as viruses, bacteria, cellular debris, fungal spores, mycelium, and byproducts of microbial metabolism. The global Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the previous emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and influenza have increased the need for reliable and effective monitoring tools for bioaerosols. Bioaerosol collection and detection have aroused considerable attention. Current bioaerosol sampling and detection techniques suffer from long response time, low sensitivity, and high costs, and these drawbacks have forced the development of novel monitoring strategies. Microfluidic technique is considered a breakthrough for high performance analysis of bioaerosols. In recent years, several emerging methods based on microfluidics have been developed and reported for collection and detection of bioaerosols. The unique advantages of microfluidic technique have enabled the integration of bioaerosol collection and detection, which has a higher efficiency over conventional methods. This review focused on the research progress of bioaerosol collection and detection methods based on microfluidic techniques, with special attention on virus aerosols and bacterial aerosols. Different from the existing reviews, this work took a unique perspective of the targets to be collected and detected in bioaerosols, which would provide a direct index of bioaerosol categories readers may be interested in. We also discussed integrated microfluidic monitoring system for bioaerosols. Additionally, the application of bioaerosol detection in biomedicine was presented. Finally, the current challenges in the field of bioaerosol monitoring are presented and an outlook given of future developments.

Application of Microfluidic Chips in the Detection of Airborne Microorganisms

The spread of microorganisms in the air, especially pathogenic microorganisms, seriously affects people's normal life. Therefore, the analysis and detection of airborne microorganisms is of great importance in environmental detection, disease prevention and biosafety. As an emerging technology with the advantages of integration, miniaturization and high efficiency, microfluidic chips are widely used in the detection of microorganisms in the environment, bringing development vitality to the detection of airborne microorganisms, and they have become a research highlight in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Microfluidic chips can be used for the detection and analysis of bacteria, viruses and fungi in the air, mainly for the detection of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, H1N1 virus, SARS-CoV-2 virus, Aspergillus niger, etc. The high sensitivity has great potential in practical detection. Here, we summarize the advances in the collection and detection of airborne microorganisms by microfluidic chips. The challenges and trends for the detection of airborne microorganisms by microfluidic chips was also discussed. These will support the role of microfluidic chips in the prevention and control of air pollution and major outbreaks.

Lab-on-a-Chip Platforms for Airborne Particulate Matter Applications: A Review of Current Perspectives

Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) devices are described as versatile, fast, accurate, and low-cost platforms for the handling, detection, characterization, and analysis of a wide range of suspended particles in water-based environments. However, for gas-based applications, particularly in atmospheric aerosols science, LoC platforms are rarely developed. This review summarizes emerging LoC devices for the classification, measurement, and identification of airborne particles, especially those known as Particulate Matter (PM), which are linked to increased morbidity and mortality levels from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. For these devices, their operating principles and performance parameters are introduced and compared while highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. Discussing the current applications will allow us to identify challenges and determine future directions for developing more robust LoC devices to monitor and analyze airborne PM.