**2. Advances in microfluidics**

#### **2.1 Global market status**

Microfluidic technology is not only attractive to researchers and academics as an emerging research field but also to industrial people as its market is growing rapidly. According to a report by Yole development [14] currently there are 700+ microfluidic related companies worldwide yielding product revenues of around 7 B (billion) dollars in 2017. Also, there are 4500+ published patents only on microfluidic technology-based diagnostics. It was also forecasted microfluidic product

**3**

**Figure 2.**

*Schematic of classification of microfluidic technology.*

*Introductory Chapter: An Overview of Advances in Microfluidics and Nanofluids Technologies*

market value to reach about 25 B dollars in 2025 [14]. The major contribution to this revenue is expected to come from new areas like clinical and point-of care diagnostics through microfluidic chips. Other areas such as optical actuations and drug delivery are also growing and are anticipated to contribute considerably to this

Recent research and development at the cutting edge of microfluidics technology span from 3D printing to virus detection. It is noted that microfluidic technology received more attention during COVID-19 pandemic due their potential in detection and diagnosis of this novel SARS-CoV2 virus. Common classifications of microfluidic technology are presented in **Figure 2**. Although continuous flow based microfluidic systems particularly for reaction and mixing are widely used, during the past two decades significant progress has also been made in research and development in droplet-based microfluidics [15]. Each of these main and subclassifications of microfluidics technology is well-developed or in good progress towards

During the past three decades applications of microfluidic technology increased considerably in a broad spectrum of scientific areas from biomedical (known as biomicrofluidics), chemical to MEMS thermal management. The most notable applications include immunoassays (a bioanalytical technique) used in pharmaceutical and clinical laboratories for diagnostics, DNA assays (capturing separation and detection of DNA etc), cell-based assays (known cell culture). A schematic of presentation of various fields of applications of microfluidic technology is provided in **Figure 3**. It can be seen that microfluidics really span a diverse field of applications starting from Lab-on-chip (LOC) to the food and agriculture

As a pioneering effort by the author nanofluids were studied in microfluidic geometries particularly in droplet-based microfluidics in order to explore new applications of nanofluids [10, 11, 16]. Thus, experimental investigations on the droplet formation and size manipulation of nanofluids in the microfluidic T-junction and flow focusing geometries were conducted. Besides temperature-dependent droplet formation at both geometries, effects of other factors such as presence of

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98425*

revolutionizing their respective area.

**2.2 Development in application**

huge market.

sectors.

*Introductory Chapter: An Overview of Advances in Microfluidics and Nanofluids Technologies DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98425*

market value to reach about 25 B dollars in 2025 [14]. The major contribution to this revenue is expected to come from new areas like clinical and point-of care diagnostics through microfluidic chips. Other areas such as optical actuations and drug delivery are also growing and are anticipated to contribute considerably to this huge market.

Recent research and development at the cutting edge of microfluidics technology span from 3D printing to virus detection. It is noted that microfluidic technology received more attention during COVID-19 pandemic due their potential in detection and diagnosis of this novel SARS-CoV2 virus. Common classifications of microfluidic technology are presented in **Figure 2**. Although continuous flow based microfluidic systems particularly for reaction and mixing are widely used, during the past two decades significant progress has also been made in research and development in droplet-based microfluidics [15]. Each of these main and subclassifications of microfluidics technology is well-developed or in good progress towards revolutionizing their respective area.
