What is it about?
Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) can trigger the freezing of cloud water droplets, affecting weather and climate. Some of these INPs may come from biological sources, but they are difficult to measure. Miniaturised "microfluidic" technology could revolutionise how we study these particles in the future.
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Why is it important?
Microfluidic technology has been revolutionising clinical diagnostics for decades by allowing the development of portable devices for the rapid detection of biological organisms with high sensitivity. There is a huge range of sampling and analysis techniques in the microfluidic toolbox that could be adapted for the detection of biological INPs in the atmosphere, and steps have been made towards this endeavour. Microfluidic technology holds huge potential for the field of biological INP analysis, though this strategy is not without its challenges.
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This page is a summary of: Microfluidics for the biological analysis of atmospheric ice-nucleating particles: Perspectives and challenges, Biomicrofluidics, January 2025, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0236911.
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