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Towards a high-throughput real-time confocal microfluidic system for monitoring absorbance spectra in mixed-phase chemical reactions

Lawton, P.F.; Girkin, J.M.

Towards a high-throughput real-time confocal microfluidic system for monitoring absorbance spectra in mixed-phase chemical reactions Thumbnail


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Abstract

In this work, we present a compact, real-time absorbance spectroscopy instrument, designed with a particular focus on taking spectroscopic readings in a microfluidic channel environment and selectively analysing an active volume in this channel by adding confocality. There are time-saving advantages to industry in carrying out and monitoring chemical reactions in a high-throughput microfluidic environment as opposed to manually mixing and then analysing chemicals. In this paper, we use absorbance spectroscopy to investigate a particular complex mixed-phase reaction (specifically, the reaction of colloidal diluted hair dye with an oxidising agent and catalyst), which has an additional complication of oxygen gas being released then trapped in the mixture as the reaction progresses. We find that the results obtained using our instrument are comparable to those obtained in a standard spectrometer. Oxygen bubbles formed in the reaction, however, present a significant obstacle to obtaining the correct sample depth in narrow flow channels. This is mitigated through the use of a camera which views the reaction between the glass and liquid through the use of remote reimaging, allowing the bubbles to be detected via histogram analysis while spectroscopy takes place enabling rogue readings to be removed, and also serves to monitor the overall density of the ‘gassy colloidal’ mixture produced.

Citation

Lawton, P., & Girkin, J. (2017). Towards a high-throughput real-time confocal microfluidic system for monitoring absorbance spectra in mixed-phase chemical reactions. Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, 21(4), Article 69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-017-1904-9

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 20, 2017
Online Publication Date Mar 28, 2017
Publication Date Apr 1, 2017
Deposit Date Mar 30, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 30, 2017
Journal Microfluidics and Nanofluidics
Print ISSN 1613-4982
Electronic ISSN 1613-4990
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 21
Issue 4
Article Number 69
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-017-1904-9
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1389923

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were
made.






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