Lab-on-chip platforms for environmental analysis

Environmental pollution is a crucial global concern. Many pollutants such as and pharmacetical compounds, heavy metals and industrial dye compounds in environmental samples display hazardous effects to humans, animals and plants. Therefore, the careful monitoring of these pollutants in environmental samples very important. Although the conventional techniques such as atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), high performance liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy (HPLC-MS) and gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) are commonly used for the sensitive analysis and monitoring of these pollutants in environmental samples, these approaches are time and energy consuming and not cost-effective. The design and development of innovative and miniaturized approaches such as lab-on-chip (LOC) technologies for the real-time analysis of the environmental pollutants have recently gained great attention from researchers. Herein, we aim to demonstrate and highlight the recent progresses in the real-time analysis of the environmental pollutants using LOC platforms.