Recent Trends of Microfluidics in Food Science and Technology: Fabrications and Applications

Abstract

The development of novel materials with microstructures is now a trend in food science and technology. These microscale materials may be applied across all steps in food manufacturing, from raw materials to the final food products, as well as in the packaging, transport, and storage processes. Microfluidics is an advanced technology for controlling fluids in a microscale channel (1~100 μm), which integrates engineering, physics, chemistry, nanotechnology, etc. This technology allows unit operations to occur in devices that are closer in size to the expected structural elements. Therefore, microfluidics is considered a promising technology to develop micro/nanostructures for delivery purposes to improve the quality and safety of foods. This review concentrates on the recent developments of microfluidic systems and their novel applications in food science and technology, including microfibers/films via microfluidic spinning technology for food packaging, droplet microfluidics for food micro-/nanoemulsifications and encapsulations, etc.

Ensuring food safety: Microfluidic‐based approaches for the detection of food contaminants

“…Despite these advantages, the trend of utilizing solely glass‐based microfluidics has fallen out of favour for similar reasons to silicon devices, including expensive manufacturing and difficult design processes. However, unlike silicon, glass remains relevant and routinely used for microfluidic devices in conjunction with other materials due to its superior transparency, durability and unique thermal resistance 40 …”

Microflow synthesis of a formulation of phosphorus fertiliser to enhance the P content in soil and P uptake in wheat

“…82 Some papers have reported on precipitation by flow chemistry, but most produced nanoparticles that were, in terms of the production scale and performance, far from commercial application requirements. 45,83–85 We show a proof of concept at scale of a complex product, which can open up the way to a commercial application. For the application considered, i.e.…”

Microfluidic Coupling of Step Emulsification and Deterministic Lateral Displacement for Producing Satellite-Free Droplets and Particles

“…In particular, microfluidic droplet-based digital polymerase chain reaction has been increasingly used in the industry [ 5 ]. In food science, microfluidic encapsulation of sensitive components for probiotic and nutrient delivery has been investigated [ 6 ]. Moreover, various functional microparticles have been synthesized from precursor droplets produced by microfluidic droplet generators [ 7 , 8 , 9 ].…”

“…In step emulsification, the break-off of a droplet is driven by interfacial tension, which primarily depends on the geometry and surface wetting of the nozzle. Therefore, unlike shear-based droplet generation [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ], the size of the droplets in step emulsification is insensitive to the flow rates of the dispersed and continuous phases, and it can be easily predetermined by the nozzle geometry (typically the nozzle height). This robustness against flow fluctuation is also advantageous in massively parallelized nozzles for scaled-up production.…”