Field-free particle focusing in microfluidic plugs

Field-free particle focusing in microfluidic plugs.

Particle concentration is a key unit operation in biochemical assays. Although there are many techniques for particle concentration in continuous-phase microfluidics, relatively few are available in multiphase (plug-based) microfluidics. Existing approaches generally require external electric or magnetic fields together with charged or magnetized particles. This paper reports a passive techniqu...

Fundamentals of elasto-inertial particle focusing in curved microfluidic channels.

Elasto-inertial focusing in viscoelastic fluids has attracted increasing interest in recent years due to its potential applications in particle counting and sorting. However, current investigations of the elasto-inertial focusing mechanisms have mainly been focused on simple straight channels with little attention being paid to curved channels. Herein, we experimentally explore the elasto-inert...

Focusing in Microfluidic Devices

Microfluidic Protein Separation by Free Flow Isoelectric Focusing

Disposable, inexpensive microfluidic devices have the potential to become a robust tool for proteomic research for separating and identifying proteins and protein complexes. In this work, a preparative scale free flow IEF isoelectric focusing (FFIEF) device was designed, investigated, and optimized. A constant electric field of up to 350V/cm was generated across the separation channel upon opti...

Microfluidic temperature gradient focusing.

A new technique is described for the concentration and separation of ionic species in solution within microchannels or capillaries. Concentration is achieved by balancing the electrophoretic velocity of an analyte against the bulk flow of solution in the presence of a temperature gradient. With an appropriate buffer, the temperature gradient can generate a corresponding gradient in the electrop...