Polymer based microfluidic devices - Examples for fluidic interfaces and standardization concepts

Although microfluidic devices have been used in research and are increasingly available on a commercial scale, most available systems are custom-made. Despite the progress made in the miniaturization of the devices and their biological or chemical application, only little attention went into the interfacing of the devices to the macroworld, particularly the adaptation of existing standards in the application fields. In this paper we present some concept s and methods of interfacing miniaturized devices with the macroworld, e.g for sample introduction. We have thereby made use of existing (semi-) standards, particularly in the biotechnology community and for biomedical applications.