ABSTRACT
Miniaturization is a modern trend for many technologies, including chemistry. The microchip technology for analytical separations is now well established and the number of on-chip applications has increased tremendously over the last decade. On a microchip, the consumption of sample and reagents is substantially reduced and the separation is accelerated compared to conventional separation techniques. The higher separation speed leads not only to a higher sample throughput but allows also a faster optimization of a separation method. The high sample throughput on a microchip can be further drastically increased using parallel chips, as the fabrication of the multiple separation units, rather than a single unit, does not signi cantly raise the cost of production. Furthermore, microchips have a great potential of integrating multiple analytical steps into one miniaturized device, leading eventually to the development of so-called micro-total analysis systems (μ-TAS) that would enable fast, fully automated analysis of complex samples.
