Recent advances in digital microfluidic chips for food safety analysis: Preparation, mechanism and application

Food safety issues occur frequently. Foodborne diseases cause patients to have symptoms such as fever and diarrhoea and, in severe cases, endanger their lives. In addition, countries invest financial and material resources in food safety issues. Therefore, allowing consumers to conduct timely and accurate detection of food safety when purchasing food has become a top priority globally. Although traditional detection methods have high accuracy and sensitivity, they cannot solve this problem due to the large instruments required and the stringent requirements for experimental conditions. Therefore, digital microfluidic chips have been widely considered a potential solution. This review discusses the concept, preparation, and mechanism of digital microfluidic chips, as well as the application of digital microfluidic chips for detecting microorganisms, small molecules and other substances, and systematically summarises their advantages and disadvantages. Simultaneously, solutions to the challenges that digital microfluidic chips may face in the future are proposed and applied to solving food safety problems. Digital microfluidic chips have the advantages of ultra-high sensitivity, wide applicability, and real-time detection; they provide a new hope for solving food safety problems. However, successful commercial applications require further research.