F-68, which reduce non-specific absorption and biofouling when dealing with biological fluids such as proteins, biological serums, and DNA. A drawback of a setup like this is accelerated droplet evaporation. ATDA is a form of open digital microfluidics, and as such the device needs to be encapsulated in a humidified environment in order to minimize droplet evaporation. Implementation In one of various embodiments of EWOD-based microfluidic biochips, investigated first by Cytonix in 1987 and subsequently commercialized by Advanced Liquid Logic, there are two parallel glass plates. The bottom plate contains a patterned array of individually controllable electrodes and the top plate is coated with a continuous grounding electrode. A dielectric insulator coated with a hydrophobic is added to the plates to decrease the wet-ability of the surface and to add capacitance between the droplet and the control electrode. The droplet containing biochemical samples and the filler medium, such as the silicone oil, a fluorinated oil, or air, are sandwiched between the plates and the droplets travel inside the filler medium. In order to move a droplet, a control voltage is applied to an electrode adjacent to the droplet, and at the same time, the electrode just under the droplet is deactivated. By varying the electric potential along a linear array of electrodes, electrowetting can be used to move droplets along this line of electrodes. Applications Laboratory automation In research fields such as synthetic biology, where highly iterative experimentation is common, considerable efforts have been made to automate workflows. Digital microfluidics is often touted as a laboratory automation solution, with a number of advantages over alternative solutions such as pipetting robots and droplet microfluidics. These stated advantages often include a reduction in the required volume of experimental reagents, a reduction in the likelihood of contamination and cross-contamination, potential improvements in reproducibility, increased throughput, individual droplet addressability, and the ability to integrate with sensor and detector modules to perform end-to-end or even closed loop workflow automation. Reduced experimental footprint One of the core advantages of digital microfluidics, and of microfluidics in general, is the use and actuation of picoliter to microliter scale volumes. Workflows adapted from the bench to a DMF system are miniaturized, meaning working volumes are reduced to fractions of what is normally required for conventional methods. For example, Thaitrong et al. developed a DMF system with a capillary electrophoresis (CE) module with the purpose of automating the process of