Microchip electrophoresis is a well established microfluidic technique with plenty of advantages [1]; however,its application in real-world analysis is still rather limited after two decades since its advent.The reason behind the fact deserves careful investigation and great efforts should be taken for the real application of this fantastic technique.High cost of microchips and devices,cumbersome operation and unsatisfactory robustness might be the most critical problems.In our efforts to overcome these difficulties,a series of modifications have been performed to improve the applicability of microchip electrophoresis.A wire-embossing-erosion method was utilized to make plastic microchips in normal chemical laboratory with very low cost.Dozens of microchips could be fabricated within 2 hrs,which makes the microchips fully disposable.Larger microchannels (70-80 μm id) were adopted to reduce the possibility of blockage of airborne dust and fibers in the channels.Multifunctional buffer additives were used to modulate the viscosity,surface property and analyte migration behavior,which effectively inhibited the analyte adsorption and analyte bands broadening arisen from the pressurized flow driven by the unbalanced liquid levels or the difference of the meniscuses in chip reservoirs.With these measures,highly efficient microchip electrophoretic separation was realized with those low-cost microchips.A group of substances that related to the food safety were analyzed with satisfactory sensitivity in real samples using laser induced fluorescence detection [2].Theoretical plate numbers of 1.0×106/m could be readily achieved.The results demonstrated that low-cost microchip electrophoresis could be a practical candidate for fast screening of hazardous residuals or additives in food and agricultural products.