Review: carbon nanotube for microfluidic lab-on-a-chip application

Microfluidic lab-on-a-chip allows chemical and biochemical analysis to be conducted in a miniaturized system. Miniaturized analysis reduces the reagent consumption while decreasing the overall size of the device, but the small dose of the sample make detection more demanding and is more sensitive to adsorption of species on the surface. Integration of carbon nanotubes into microfludic devices is a promising approach. This review addresses recent advances in the application of carbon nanotubes for microfluidic lab-on-a-chip. The literature review shows that carbon nanotubes have been used to achieve superlubrifying microchannels, act as high density nanoporous membranes, electrical transducers mainly in flow sensors and biosensors, and mimics of living systems. In addition, extensive work has been carried out to investigate the tunable mechanical, chemical and electrical properties of carbon nanotubes in order to manipulate and analyse extremely small volumes of fluid effectively.