Miniaturised chemical analysis systems-materials and bonding

Amongst the separation methods of analytical chemistry, capillary electrophoresis (CE), free-flow electrophoresis (FFE) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) have been subject to a miniaturisation. These systems are called /spl mu/-TAS (miniaturised total analysis systems). Miniaturisation is the key for several advances in chemical analysis: analysis speed is drastically increased with shrinking capillary dimensions; sample and waste consumption is reduced to nano- or microlitre volumes and, using modem microsystem technologies and advanced materials, the reproducibility of the results improves while the cost exposure of the analytical instrument shrinks. The use of polymer materials as substrates for analysis chips leads to disposable systems, important for applications in biochemistry and clinical diagnostics. In the long run, these systems can perform complex chemical analysis in sensorlike fashion, on-line and in-situ.