page_title: Microfluidics
section_title: Microscale behaviour of fluids
hierarchical_section_title: Microfluidics / Microscale behaviour of fluids
caption_attribution_description: English: Microfluidic devices, including micrographs of one of the channels.
context_page_description: Microfluidics refers to the behaviour, precise control, and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small scale at which capillary penetration governs mass transport. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves engineering, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. It has practical applications in the design of systems that process low volumes of fluids to achieve multiplexing, automation, and high-throughput screening. Microfluidics emerged in the beginning of the 1980s and is used in the development of inkjet printheads, DNA chips, lab-on-a-chip technology, micro-propulsion, and micro-thermal technologies.
  Typically, micro means one of the following features:
  Small volumes
  Small size
  Low energy consumption
  Microdomain effects
  Typically microfluidic systems transport, mix, separate, or otherwise process fluids. Various applications rely on passive fluid control using capillary forces, in the form of capillary flow modifying elements, akin to flow resistors and flow accelerators. In some applications, external actuation means are additionally used for a directed transport of the media.
context_section_description: The behaviour of fluids at the microscale can differ from "macrofluidic" behaviour in that factors such as surface tension, energy dissipation, and fluidic resistance start to dominate the system. Microfluidics studies how these behaviours change, and how they can be worked around, or exploited for new uses.
  At small scales (channel size of around 100 nanometers to 500 micrometers) some interesting and sometimes unintuitive properties appear. In particular, the Reynolds number (which compares the effect of the momentum of a fluid to the effect of viscosity) can become very low. A key consequence is co-flowing fluids do not necessarily mix in the traditional sense, as flow becomes laminar rather than turbulent; molecular transport between them must often be through diffusion.
  High specificity of chemical and physical properties (concentration, pH, temperature, shear force, etc.) can also be ensured resulting in more uniform reaction conditions and higher grade products in single and multi-step reactions.
caption: Silicone rubber and glass microfluidic devices. Top: a photograph of the devices. Bottom: Phase contrast micrographs of a serpentine channel ~15 μm wide.
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