Abstract
Microfluidics is characterized by laminar flow at micro-scale dimension, high surface to volume ratio, and markedly improved heat/mass transfer. In addition, together with advantages of large-scale integration and flexible manipulation, microfluidic technology has been rapidly developed as one of the most important platforms in the field of functional biomaterial synthesis. Compared to biomaterials assisted by conventional strategies, functional biomaterials synthesized by microfluidics are with superior properties and performances, due to their controllable morphology and composition, which have shown great advantages and potential in the field of biomedicine, biosensing, and tissue engineering. Take the significance of microfluidic engineered biomaterials into consideration; this review highlights the microfluidic synthesis technologies and biomedical applications of materials. We divide microfluidic based biomaterials into four kinds. According to the material dimensionality, it includes: 0D (particulate materials), 1D (fibrous materials), 2D (sheet materials), and 3D (construct forms of materials). In particular, micro/nano-particles and micro/nano-fibers are introduced respectively. This classification standard could include all of the microfluidic biomaterials, and we envision introducing a comprehensive and overall evaluation and presentation of microfluidic based biomaterials and their applications.
Highlights
Since the 1990s, no matter in the field of natural science, nor engineering technology, miniaturization has become one of the general development trends [1,2,3]
A microfluidic system, namely, lab-on-a-chip, is a multifunctional platform which integrates basic operating units involved in the fields of chemistry and biology, such as sample preparation, reaction, separation, detection, and cell culture, separation, lysis, into a chip, within an area of a few square centimeters [4,5]
The idea of microfluidics fits well with the concept of miniaturization, and thanks to its interdisciplinary advantages, it has been widely applied in fields such as engineering, physics, chemistry, microscopy, and biotechnology [8,9,10]
Summary
Since the 1990s, no matter in the field of natural science, nor engineering technology, miniaturization has become one of the general development trends [1,2,3]. A microfluidic system, namely, lab-on-a-chip, is a multifunctional platform which integrates basic operating units involved in the fields of chemistry and biology, such as sample preparation, reaction, separation, detection, and cell culture, separation, lysis, into a chip, within an area of a few square centimeters [4,5] In this system, the micro-structured units and controllable fluidics constitute the network, which work as conventional chemical or biological laboratories [6,7]. The use of microfluidic technology to design and prepare functional biomaterials has become a hot topic recently, will continue to bring infinite possibilities for the future development of the areas of materials science and biology [25,26]. A series of particulate biomaterials, such as spherical particles, special shape particles, porous particles, core-shell structured particles, and even multi-component composite particles, have been developed
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