Liquid phase chromatography on microchips

Over the past twenty years, the field of microfluidics has emerged providing one of the main enabling technologies to realize miniaturized chemical analysis systems, often referred to as micro-Total Analysis Systems (uTAS), or, more generally, Lab-on-a-Chip Systems (LOC) [1] and [2]. While microfluidics was driven forward a lot from the engineering side, especially with respect to ink jet and dispensing technology, the initial push and interest from the analytical chemistry community was through the desire to develop miniaturized sensors, detectors, and, very early on, separation systems. The initial almost explosive development of, in particular, chromatographic separation systems on microchips, has, however, slowed down in recent years. This review takes a closer, critical look at how liquid phase chromatography has been implemented in miniaturized formats over the past several years, what is important to keep in mind when developing or working with separations in a miniaturized format, and what challenges and pitfalls remain.