Charge‐based separation of particles and cells with similar sizes via the wall‐induced electrical lift. Issue 2 (29th August 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Thomas, Cory; Lu, Xinyu; Todd, Andrew; Raval, Yash; Tzeng, Tzuen‐Rong; Song, Yongxin; Wang, Junsheng; Li, Dongqing; Xuan, Xiangchun
• Other Names: Foret Frantisek guestEditor.; Kutter Jörg P. guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Electrophoresis. Volume 38:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 320
• Page End: 326
• Publication Date: 2016-08-29
• Subjects: Electrical lift -- Electrokinetic -- Microfluidic -- Particle separation -- Surface charge; Electrophoresis -- Periodicals; Electrophoresis -- Periodicals; 541.372
• DOI: 10.1002/elps.201600284
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0173-0835

Abstract

Abstract : The separation of particles and cells in a uniform mixture has been extensively studied as a necessity in many chemical and biomedical engineering and research fields. This work demonstrates a continuous charge‐based separation of fluorescent and plain spherical polystyrene particles with comparable sizes in a ψ‐shaped microchannel via the wall‐induced electrical lift. The effects of both the direct current electric field in the main‐branch and the electric field ratio in between the inlet branches for sheath fluid and particle mixture are investigated on this electrokinetic particle separation. A Lagrangian tracking method based theoretical model is also developed to understand the particle transport in the microchannel and simulate the parametric effects on particle separation. Moreover, the demonstrated charge‐based separation is applied to a mixture of yeast cells and polystyrene particles with similar sizes. Good separation efficiency and purity are achieved for both the cells and the particles.