Microfluidic technology permits the miniaturization of chemical analytical methods that are traditionally undertaken using benchtop equipment in the laboratory environment. When applied to environmental monitoring, these "lab-on-chip" systems could allow high-performance chemical analysis methods to be performed in situ over distributed sensor networks with large numbers of measurement nodes. Here we present the first of a new generation of microfluidic chemical analysis systems with sufficient analytical performance and robustness for deployment in natural waters. The system detects nitrate and nitrite (up to 350 μM, 21.7 mg/L as NO(3)(-)) with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.025 μM for nitrate (0.0016 mg/L as NO(3)(-)) and 0.02 μM for nitrite (0.00092 mg/L as NO(2)(-)). This performance is suitable for almost all natural waters (apart from the oligotrophic open ocean), and the device was deployed in an estuarine environment (Southampton Water) to monitor nitrate+nitrite concentrations in waters of varying salinity. The system was able to track changes in the nitrate-salinity relationship of estuarine waters due to increased river flow after a period of high rainfall. Laboratory characterization and deployment data are presented, demonstrating the ability of the system to acquire data with high temporal resolution.

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A rapid and low-cost technique is presented for the fabrication of optical quality microfluidic devices in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). When polymer microfluidic devices are manufactured by rapid prototyping techniques, such as micromilling, the surface roughness is typically in the region of hundreds of nanometres reducing the overall optical efficiency of many microfluidic-based systems. Here we demonstrate a novel solvent vapour treatment that is used to irreversibly bond microfluidic chips while simultaneously reducing the channel surface roughness, yielding optical grade (less than 15 nm surface roughness) channel walls. We characterize this vapour bonding method and optimize the process parameters to avoid channel collapse, while achieving reflow of polymer and uniformity of bonding. The reflow of polymer is the key to enabling a fabrication process that takes less than a day and produces optical quality surfaces with low-cost rapid prototyping tools.