High performance integrated micro-fabricated pre-concentrator based on MEMS

The concentration of most environmental samples is very low. In order to directly detect these samples, an integrated micro pre-concentrator, which can significantly improve detection limit of mini gas chromatography system with 1-2 orders, is developed. The micro pre-concentrator has 4 parallel channels filled with enough Tenax-TA as adsorbent materials for concentrating volatile organic compounds. For closing the released components during thermal desorption process, a micro-valve is integrated behind the pre-concentrator. The result demonstrates the proposed pre-concentrator can effectively concentrate components with a concentration factor of 15. Moreover, the chromatography peak broadening is greatly compressed under controlling by the micro-valve. Therefore, the micro-fabricated pre-concentrator can be easy to deploy and suitable for a number of applications involving on-site monitoring of environmental samples.