Application of Monolithic Silica for Microfluidic Analysis

Abstract

It has been known that monolithic porous silica possesses the morphology of a continuous skeleton, micro-scaled through-pore and nano-scaled meso-pore on the skeleton. It is its unique morphology that shows great promise for applications in the fields of analytical chemistry. This paper describes advances in successful applications of monolithic silica to analytical chemistry, achieved in authors’ groups. The authors focused their work on three main subjects regarding monolithic silica: (i) a chemically modified monolithic silica column for chiral separation in capillary electrochromatography and micro-liquid chromatography, (ii) a monolithic enzyme reactor integrated with a biosensor for continuous monitoring (bimolecules), and (iii) an electroosmotic micropump for micro flow analysis and electrospraying.