Free-surface microfluidics for detection of airborne explosives

A novel microfluidic, remote-sensing, chemical detection platform has been developed for real-time sensing of airborne agents. The key enabling technology is a newly developed concept termed Free-Surface Fluidics (FSF), where one or more fluidic surfaces, confined by surface tension forces, are exposed to the surrounding atmosphere. The free-surface fluidic architecture can be combined with Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) to allow the real-time profiling of atmospheric species and detection of airborne agents. Results indicate that 4-aminobenzenethiol, a chemical species similar in size and structure to trinitrotoluene (TNT), is readily detected by the SERS system which employs Free-Surface Fluidics to continuously detect the presence of gas-phase species.