Cellulose acetate microparticles for Lab-on-a-chip applications

Lab-on-a-chip technology represents a revolution in laboratory experimentation and permits testing to move from the central laboratory into micro-devices made of different materials (glass, silicon, polymers). The main advantages of the new devices are integration of multiple steps in complex analytical procedures, diversity of application, sub-microliter consumption of reagents and sample, and portability. In order to propose a microparticle formulation specially designed for lab-on-a-chip applications, cellulose acetate (CA) were considered. Since size and morphology of microparticles are expected to reasonably influence the microparticies performances, the external and internal structure of CA microparticles was investigated by optical and scanning electron microscopy and the size distribution was determined by a particle optical sizer. Different types of dyes were used to increase microparticle visibility in the devices.