![]() 21,22 According to the market survey Results survey on microfluidics flow control performed in 2015 with industrial and academic players in microfluidics by enabling MNT, 23 the properties of fluids used vary significantly depending on the application, from gas to liquid, aqueous to organic, monophasic or a multi phasic, Newtonian or not, with a viscosity ranging from 1 to 1000 mPa s. 18–20 However, such an expansion could only be achieved thanks to the development of functional components, allowing the handling of liquids at the microscale and, in particular, in actuators and sensors. 17 This high growth rate is largely due to recent applications in genomics, point-of-care diagnostics, and drug delivery systems. In 2013, the microfluidic market was valued at US$ 1.6 billion, 16 and is expected to reach US$ 44.0 billion by 2025. 13–15 These intrinsic advantages have resonated with biological and medical markets, in which reagents and samples can be extremely limited and expensive, and the development of systems in biology and molecular medicine has called for massively parallel analyses. 8,9 Microfluidics has since then raised interest in a constantly increasing range of applications, taking advantage of several unique features: i/in direct inspiration from microelectronics, microfluidics allows to achieve high integration, automation, and parallelization of multiple steps (leading to the concept of “microfluidic processor” and “Micro-Total Analysis System”, a term first coined by Widmer and Manz 10) ii/microfluidics allows the reliable manipulation of sub-microliter quantities of fluids, and thus a dramatic reduction in this device's sizes and the required sample and reagent quantities iii/finally, microfluidics has also opened the route to intrinsically new concepts, such as “digital PCR” 11,12 or “organs on chip”. The next step in microfluidics history was initiated at Standford University by Terry et al., who developed the first miniaturized gas chromatograph using a silicon wafer. 7 Inkjet printing is now a multibillion US$ market, and is still based on microfluidics, making it, volume-wise, a major field of application. 3,6 This work was continued by Bassous et al. In 1965, Richard Sweet at Standford University developed an inkjet printer using a vibrating nozzle with a 35 μm hole, 5 which is regarded as the first microfluidic device. 4 Practical achievements, however, had already been proposed earlier. as the “devices and methods for controlling and manipulating fluid flows with length scales less than a millimeter”. Microfluidics was defined by Stone et al. 1 Introduction The field of microfluidics emerged in the 70's, and has since grown in a quasi-exponential way, becoming one of the main empowering technologies in biology and medicine (see ref. We conclude this review with some perspectives and pending challenges for microfluidic flowmeters. ![]() Given the need of traceability of these measurements, we then focus on the developments of primary standards to measure microfluidic flow rates by metrological institutes. We review herein the different technologies available and those under development, and discuss their sensing principles and industrial maturity. For the maturation of microfluidic technologies, the need for affordable, reliable, and quantitative techniques to measure flow rates from 1 nL min −1 to 1 mL min −1 appears as a strong challenge. The fundamental reason for this expansion has been the development of miniature components, allowing the handling of liquids at the microscale. Originally designed for chromatography, electrophoresis, and printing technologies, microfluidics has since found applications in a variety of domains such as engineering, chemistry, environmental, and life sciences.
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