Manufacturing Embedded Sensors within Microfluidic Reactors.

A traditional route to synthesising material was to mix the chemicals within a flask or beaker, these so called batch reactors are increasingly being replaced by flow reactors. Continuous flow reactors are proving powerful tools for synthesizing materials, they offer reduced production costs, a rapid method of optimising the reaction conditions, as well as reducing variation in products from batch-to-batch techniques.

Infrequent sampling and monitoring of the products within fluidic reactors however removes any benefit of the flow process. For example if the products of a fluidic chip are analysed every day, and a failure occurs during this period, a days' worth of product are lost as the system is restarted. An infrequent sampling period equates flow chemistry to a batch-to-batch process with the quantity in each batch being the length of time between samples. Thus challenges in implementing micro reactor systems lie in the development of control and design strategies that guarantee uniform mixing, and fluidic behaviour and to facilitate the Inline monitoring of chemical products for high-throughput processing.

Embedded sensor systems within bespoke reactors is an under researched field. New methods of manufacturing offer potential solutions, including the use of Additive Manufacturing (AM), or multistage builds using a variety of techniques such as lithography coupled with AM, would allow bespoke flow channels to be designed and optimised for the reaction and interface for the analytical platform. The research will develop the manufacturing process's for inline flow sensors. The benefits of these new sensors will then be applied to the production of nanomaterials and pharmaceuticals.

The OTG allows a platform for future success and growth of the applicant and the UK science base. The research fits well with the EPSRC research remit in Analytical Science and Particles technologies portfolio and their ambitions e.g. Introduction of next generation of innovative and disruptive technologies, supporting the creation and scale up of affordable medicines.

The main non-academic beneficiaries are:

Companies working with Loughborough using microfluidics for the synthesis of Iron Oxide particles (Altratech) will benefit from an inline sensor monitoring their product. The sensor technology being developed requires a uniform nanomaterial, and the current best practice for manufacturing is the use of microfluidic reactors.

Partners of Loughborough developing Electrochemical sensors for the characterisation of nanomaterials for biological applications (Izon Science Ltd) or environmental applications (Nuclear decommissioning Authority) will be end users of the technology, where the devices can be integrated into portable sampling devices.

Partners of Centre of Pharmaceiutical Technology (PVZ) developing testing and formulation of drugs as well as personalized medicine will adopt and test the reactor technologies produced. Furthermore partners within the Laboratory of Emerging Nanotechnology (LENA) which is also in close cooperation with Germanys national metrology institute (PTB) will test and adopt the nanoparticle characterization and nanoparticle metrology