High pressure microfluidics : new tools for investigating the deep biosphere

Anaïs Cario (1) , Carole Lecoutre-Chabot (1) , Olivier Nguyen (1) , Samuel Marre (1) , Yves Garrabos (1)

1 ICMCB - Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux

Over the last 10 years, a new field of investigation called "high pressure microfluidics" has gained increasing interest [1]. It is based on the idea of combining the advantages of microfluidics (reduction in size, rapid screening, in situ analyses, reproducibility, hydrodynamic control, improvement of heat and mass transfers, low consumption of reagents during optimization phases, etc.) with fluid systems used under high pressure (and high temperature) conditions. The development of this high pressure microfluidic technology has opened up many opportunities to study and characterize a large number of processes using high pressure fluids (up to a few hundred bar at present) such as hydro- and solvothermal processes, thermodynamics measurements [2], studies of geofluids flows in model porous media [3] or supercritical fluids [4]. More recently, it appears that such tools are particularly well adapted to the investigation of microbiology under extreme conditions such as microorganisms living in the deep.

Domaines: Matériaux

Anaïs Cario, Carole Lecoutre-Chabot, Olivier Nguyen, Samuel Marre, Yves Garrabos. High pressure microfluidics : new tools for investigating the deep biosphere. 17th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids and 7th European Meeting High Pressure Technology, ITQUIMA, Apr 2019, Ciudad Real, Spain. pp.155-156. ⟨hal-02899996⟩