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Nature’s Silica Show Promise for Lab-on-a-Chips
 Nature’s Silica Show Promise for Lab-on-a-Chips 3/24/2008 There is an increasing
demand for microscale total analysis systems or lab-on-a-chip (LOC) to be
smaller, cheaper, cleaner and faster to deal with larger sample numbers and
stricter environmental regulations. Portable systems would also allow remote
testing of samples for clinical diagnosis or environmental testing. Nature may provide the answer in the form of
diatoms. Diatoms, which range in size from 2-2,000 microns, are single-celled microalgae with rigid walls (frustules) composed of amorphous silica. These walls are produced at ambient temperatures and pressures with features on the mesoscale (102 nm). Diatoms require only light, heat, and basic nutrients to survive and some species can reproduce at a rate of 100 million per month. The complex three-dimensional microstructure
of pores and channels results in a high surface area, which is suitable for LOC
applications. Researchers at
One application is drug discovery or genomics, which require a large chemical compound library containing more than 106 compounds for high sensitivity. Because of limited substrate areas, current devices can only display <105 compounds. Although colloidal silica articles have been investigated to increase the total area of the substrate, the diatom frustules may be a better solution since they has excellent mechanical strength, are easy to culture, and are a renewable source. Costly chemical processes are also eliminated.
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