A novel 6-step microfabrication process is proposed in this work to prepare microfluidic devices with integrated zeolite layers. In particular, microfabricated preconcentrators designed for volatile organic compounds (VOC) sensing applications are fully described. The main novelty of this work is the integration of the pure siliceous MFI type zeolite (silicalite-1) polycrystalline layer, i.e 4.0 ± 0.5 µm thick, as active phase, within the microfabrication process just before the anodic bonding step. Following this new procedure, Si microdevices with an excellent distribution of the adsorbent material, integrated resistive heaters and Pyrex caps have been obtained. Firstly, the microconcentrator performance has been assessed by means of the normal hexane breakthrough curves as a function of sampling and desorption flowrates, temperature and micropreconcentrator design. In a step further, the best preconcentrator device has been tested in combination with downstream Si based microcantilevers deployed as VOC detectors. Thus, a preliminar evaluation of the improvement on detection sensitivity by silicalite-1 based microconcentrators is presented.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.