Chemical microanalytical systems: objectives and latest developments

Chemical microanalysis systems are at a very early state of development. At the present time a modular approach with subsystems carrying out the various functions such as sampling, preparation and measurement seems to be favored by the developers. The marketpotential of the systems can be seen primarily in the area of inexpensive monitoring equipment for environmental and process control. Reduction of size leads also to smaller sample volumes, less waste and shorter analysis time: Miniaturization is in many cases an essential feature for biological and in-vivo medical investigations, while some properties inherently associated with miniaturization can also lead to substantial improvements in the technical performance of the microsystem as compared to its macro version. This will be demonstrated by discussing some microsystems which include spectroscopic detection systems:- Miniature separation instruments coupled with advanced miniaturized detection device based on photothermal spectroscopy- Integrated-optical NIR evanescent wave sensor systems- Optochemical and biosensor systems