Instrument-free point-of-care diagnostic devices could be taken to the next level with the development of microfluidic fuel cells on paper. 
Paper is cheap, biodegradable, thin and flexible, making it an ideal base material for single-use tests. The paper-based microfluidic fuel cells created by Juan Pablo Esquivel, at the Barcelona Microelectronics Institute of the National Microelectronics Centre, IMB-CNM (CSIC), in Spain, and colleagues, were inspired by the convenience and simplicity of lateral flow test strips – pregnancy tests are probably the most well-known example of these – and take advantage of capillary diffusion to transport reactants without external pumps.
Interested to know more? Read the full news article by Jennifer Newton on Chemistry World here…
Read the original article in EES – it’s open access
Microfluidic fuel cells on paper: meeting the power needs of next generation lateral flow devices
Juan Pablo Esquivel Bojorquez, Javier Del Campo, de la Fuente José Luis, Sergio Rojas and Neus Sabaté
Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C3EE44044C, Paper
