Recent advances for serial processes of hazardous chemicals in fully integrated microfluidic systems

The development and enlargement of toxic and hazardous chemicals are severely limited by health and safety concerns. We summarize studies on fully integrated micro-chemical systems and total processes to reduce accidental exposure to various regents that are toxic, explosive, or carcinogenic, which significantly improved the safety of work involving risky compounds. This review covers the leak-free continuous-flow processes of hazardous chemicals in fully integrated microfluidic systems, specially denoted as micro-total envelope systems (μ-TESs), that are conducting a serial process of the generation of hazardous reagents, in-situ purification and separation, subsequent reaction, and product isolation with improved efficiencies. These attempts suggest safe and efficient tools and processes of useful but hazardous chemicals for researchers and manufacturing workers in the field of pharmaceutic discovery, natural products, biology as well as materials synthesis.