Microfluidic analytical devices, also referred to as Lab-On-a-Chips (LOCs), represent an emerging technology with a great potential in chemistry, biochemistry and analytical life science.1-3 Scaling down chemical and analytical reactions to a microscopic size can offer many advantages,4 such as low reagents consumption, rapid analysis, easy operation, and increased reproducibility, selectivity and efficiency; moreover the involved costs are reduced and the performance improved.5,6 Microfluidic devices are used for transporting and manipulating small amounts of fluids and/or biological samples through microchannels and allow the integration of various chemical and biochemical processes into fast and automated microflow systems.7,8 In recent years polymers have assumed a leading role in the fabrication of microfluidic devices. In particular, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has rapidly become a reference material for different applications, thanks to simpler and less expensive fabrication procedures as well as its interesting properties (optical transparency, durability, low cost, biocompatibility, non-toxicity and stability over a wide temperature range).9-11 However, extensive application of PDMS in the fields of chemistry and life science is limited due to its low chemical resistance. Its incompatibility with many solvents and reagents causes swelling and chemical etching, effects that are even more pronounced in microscale channels due to the high surface to volume ratio. These drawbacks lead to clogging of microchannels, device damaging and delamination, contamination of reactions and assays.
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