Portable in situ temperature‐dependent spectroscopy on a low‐cost microfluidic platform integrated with a battery‐powered thermofoil heater

A low‐cost microfluidic platform integrated with a flexible heater was developed for in situ temperature‐dependent spectroscopic measurement at the point of care. After verifying the system by comparing on‐chip spectroscopic measurement of methylene blue with the conventional spectroscopy, we demonstrated its applications in temperature‐dependent absorption spectroscopy of a model biomolecule, curcumin. The system is portable, battery‐powered and requires ultra‐low volumes of analytes, which is highly suitable for point‐of‐care characterization. The authors present a low‐cost portable microfluidic platform integrated with a flexible heater for in situ temperature‐dependent spectroscopic measurement in low‐resource settings. After verifying the system by comparing on‐chip spectroscopic measurement of methylene blue dye with the conventional spectroscopy, we demonstrated its applications in temperature‐dependent absorption spectroscopy of curcumin.