A microfluidic sub-critical water extraction instrument

This article discusses a microfluidic subcritical water extraction (SCWE) chip for autonomous extraction of amino acids from astrobiologically interesting samples. The microfluidic instrument is composed of three major components. These include a mixing chamber where the soil sample is mixed and agi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of scientific instruments 2017-11, Vol.88 (11), p.114101-114101
Main Authors: Sherrit, Stewart, Noell, Aaron C., Fisher, Anita, Lee, Mike C., Takano, Nobuyuki, Bao, Xiaoqi, Kutzer, Thomas C., Grunthaner, Frank
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino acids
Astrobiology
Scientific apparatus & instruments
Slurries
Vapor pressure
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article discusses a microfluidic subcritical water extraction (SCWE) chip for autonomous extraction of amino acids from astrobiologically interesting samples. The microfluidic instrument is composed of three major components. These include a mixing chamber where the soil sample is mixed and agitated with the solvent (water), a subcritical water extraction chamber where the sample is sealed with a freeze valve at the chip inlet after a vapor bubble is injected into the inlet channels to ensure the pressure in the chip is in equilibrium with the vapor pressure and the slurry is then heated to ≤200 °C in the SCWE chamber, and a filter or settling chamber where the slurry is pumped to after extraction. The extraction yield of the microfluidic SCWE chip process ranged from 50% compared to acid hydrolysis and 80%–100% compared to a benchtop microwave SCWE for low biomass samples.
ISSN:0034-6748
1089-7623
DOI:10.1063/1.4999932