mikrokanalitele

Mikrokanalitele are microchannels, enunciated in Romanian literature as a network of narrow conduits that guide liquids at the micrometric scale. They are core elements of microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip systems, enabling controlled fluid transport, mixing, and reaction within compact devices.

Geometrically, mikrokanalitele have cross-sectional dimensions from roughly 10 micrometers to hundreds of micrometers, with lengths ranging from millimeters to centimeters. They can be rectangular, square, circular, or more complex shapes, and are fabricated in a variety of materials such as silicon, glass, PDMS, PMMA, and other polymers.

Fabrication methods include soft lithography (PDMS on a mold), photolithography followed by etching in silicon or glass, hot embossing, and laser micromachining. Such methods allow rapid prototyping and, for plastics, scalable mass production.

Fluid dynamics in mikrokanalitele are dominated by laminar flow due to small dimensions, with Reynolds numbers typically well below 1,000 and often below 100. This enables predictable pressure-driven flow, precise metering, and diffusion-based mixing or specialized active mixing strategies.

Applications include chemical synthesis on a chip, biomedical assays, point-of-care diagnostics, cell and molecular biology experiments, and droplet or digital microfluidics. Mikrokanalitele also play a role in organ-on-a-chip and microreactor systems.

Challenges include clogging, fouling, biocompatibility of materials, integration with sensors and actuators, and scaling from single channels to complex networks. Ongoing developments aim to improve fabrication costs, surface chemistry, and multi-material integration.