Towards fully integrated liquid chromatography on a chip: Evolution and evaluation

Miniaturization of liquid chromatography (LC) is at the leading edge of the research topics and offers a wide range of applications in chemistry, biology, pharmaceutical, clinical diagnosis, and food analysis. The state-of-the-art “lab-on-chip” or “micro-total analysis systems” gathered scientists all over the world to provide systems with the aim of portability, reliability, reduced analysis time and cost of operation and analysis. From the hardware equipment point of view, the LC system is made by the primary compartments of solvent reservoir, pump, injector, column, and detector. In this work, we surveyed the development of LC systems and advances in each of the integrated components (i.e. pumping systems, injectors, separation channels, and detector) and the materials used for their fabrication from the beginning up to now. Finally, we summarize the application of fully integrated LC systems and exemplify about the multidimensional LCs on a chip development.