Particulate matter (PM) has caused a significant challenge to our daily life. The effect included severe air pollution, the health threat, and climate change by absorbing and scattering solar radiation. Due to the mechanism of the traditional filter, they cannot achieve the high removal efficiency and the low air pressure drop simultaneously, which dramatically limits our daily life and industrial production. In pollution analysis, the current method requested to select the specific filter for the target analyte and then collect the sample over several weeks. Therefore, we only analyze partial components without real-time information.

My MPhil studies mainly focused on exploring portable, easy transportation and storage, combined with the high removal efficiency and the low-pressure d...[ Read more ]

Particulate matter (PM) has caused a significant challenge to our daily life. The effect included severe air pollution, the health threat, and climate change by absorbing and scattering solar radiation. Due to the mechanism of the traditional filter, they cannot achieve the high removal efficiency and the low air pressure drop simultaneously, which dramatically limits our daily life and industrial production. In pollution analysis, the current method requested to select the specific filter for the target analyte and then collect the sample over several weeks. Therefore, we only analyze partial components without real-time information.

My MPhil studies mainly focused on exploring portable, easy transportation and storage, combined with the high removal efficiency and the low-pressure drop microfluidic device for the PM particle collection and composition analysis. Based on a typical mixer of the microfluidic device, I adopted it as the main component in the PM collector to capture the PM particles. Also, the performance of the chip is further optimized by the surface modification and the nanoparticle filler.

I give a general overview of the microfluidic chips, including their significance, materials, fabrication techniques, components, and their application in environmental analysis. In the rest chapters, I presented the research projects completed during my MPhil study, including the device's design, simulating the expected result by COMSOL, measured its practical performance by liquid and solid particles. Then I also proved its potential in the whole function on-site sample collection and composition analysis by increasing its thermal stability.