Applications and perspectives on microfluidic technologies in ships and marine engineering: a review

摘要

More than 71% of the earth's surface area is occupied by ocean, and the shipping has become one of the most common forms of transportation. There are many applications for rapid on-site detection in ships and marine engineering in general. However, owing to the limited space and environmental conditions, large-scale laboratory equipment cannot be utilized on ships and offline examination methods cannot meet the needs for rapid detection and analysis of problems. Microfluidic technologies provide an excellent platform where various biological and chemical reactions can be completed on very small microfluidic chips. The combination of microfluidic technologies and ship and marine engineering will have important theoretical significance and practical value. These applications mainly include ballast water analysis, lubricating oil analysis, monitoring oil spill, ship exhaust gas detection and ship sewage detection. Therefore, in this paper, we have summarized the current applications of microfluidic technologies in ships and marine engineering and suggested prospects for the potential research directions in the future.