Applications of magnetic materials in the fabrication of microfluidic-based sensing systems: Recent advances

Abstract In today's world, various types of magnetic materials as an essential and inseparable part of scientific application demonstrate high potential for exploitation in different fields including bioimaging, catalysis, and energy storage. In addition, attractive and unique advantages including high surface area, conductivity, stability, and solubility have caused the high efficiency of these materials in sensing platforms. Besides, the advancement of point-of-care detection methods such as microfluidics has provided a portable sensing device with several advantages such as short response time and the lowest amounts of samples and reagents as well as being automated for efficient determination of various toxins, drugs, and cells. In this review, we attempted to review recent types of microfluidic systems based on electrochemical, optical and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) methods which have exploited magnetic materials for designing the most efficient and sensitive microfluidic sensor based on magnetic materials.