Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Av Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal.
Molecules. 2011 Sep 30;16(10):8368-401. doi: 10.3390/molecules16108368.
The dawn of the new millennium saw a trend towards the dedicated use of microfluidic devices for process intensification in biotechnology. As the last decade went by, it became evident that this pattern was not a short-lived fad, since the deliverables related to this field of research have been consistently piling-up. The application of process intensification in biotechnology is therefore seemingly catching up with the trend already observed in the chemical engineering area, where the use of microfluidic devices has already been upgraded to production scale. The goal of the present work is therefore to provide an updated overview of the developments centered on the use of microfluidic devices for process intensification in biotechnology. Within such scope, particular focus will be given to different designs, configurations and modes of operation of microreactors, but reference to similar features regarding microfluidic devices in downstream processing will not be overlooked. Engineering considerations and fluid dynamics issues, namely related to the characterization of flow in microchannels, promotion of micromixing and predictive tools, will also be addressed, as well as reflection on the analytics required to take full advantage of the possibilities provided by microfluidic devices in process intensification. Strategies developed to ease the implementation of experimental set-ups anchored in the use of microfluidic devices will be briefly tackled. Finally, realistic considerations on the current advantages and limitation on the use of microfluidic devices for process intensification, as well as prospective near future developments in the field, will be presented.
新千年的曙光见证了微流控装置在生物技术中用于强化过程的趋势。随着过去十年的过去，很明显这种模式不是短暂的时尚，因为与这一研究领域相关的成果一直在不断堆积。因此，生物技术中的强化过程应用似乎正在赶上化学工程领域已经观察到的趋势，在化学工程领域，微流控装置的使用已经升级到生产规模。本工作的目的因此是提供一个关于使用微流控装置强化生物技术过程的最新发展概述。在这种范围内，将特别关注微反应器的不同设计、配置和操作模式，但也不会忽视下游处理中微流控装置的类似特征。还将讨论工程考虑因素和流体动力学问题，特别是与微通道中流动的特性化、促进微混合和预测工具有关的问题，以及对充分利用微流控装置在强化过程中提供的可能性所需的分析的反思。还将简要探讨为便于实施基于微流控装置的实验装置而开发的策略。最后，将介绍当前在强化过程中使用微流控装置的优势和限制的实际考虑因素，以及该领域的未来发展前景。
