An Anti-Adhesion Technique in Microfluidic Channel Using Dielectrophoresis for Particle Processing Microfluidic Chip Applications.
Particle adhesion to the walls of microfluidic channels is a prominent cause of deteriorating performance and reliability in miniaturized analytical devices; it can also cause unexpected changes in their structures and operating conditions. Therefore, the demand of anti-adhesion for wall loss reduction on particle processing chips is high. This paper demonstrates an anti-adhesion technique using dielectrophoresis. The proposed technique is applied to a distribution microchannel for a feasibility test and is then applied to a blood plasma filter, which is a human blood cell and plasma separation device. In the distribution microchannel, the application of electric potentials of 0-20 V(pp) at 3 MHz caused the wall loss of polystyrene latex (PSL) particles to decrease with decreasing particle diameter. When an electric potential of 20 V(pp) was applied in a distribution microchannel experiment using PSL particles, the wall loss decreased by 52.7 ± 3% for 10-μm-diameter particles. On the other hand, when a 20 V(pp) electric potential was applied in a distribution microchannel experiment using human blood cells, the wall loss decreased by 66.4 ± 6%. In the blood plasma filter, the wall loss decreased by 54.89 ± 5% at 20 V(pp) and 1 MHz. The purity efficiency of the blood plasma filter was 69.56% without the wall loss reduction technique and 95.14% when the applied electric potential was 20 V(pp).
Dong-Hyun
DH
Kang
Min-Gu
MG
Kim
Hye-Kyoung
HK
Seo
Yong-Jun
YJ
Kim
D000268:Adhesiveness; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000295:instrumentation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004586:Electrophoresis / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D017583:Hemodiafiltration / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018056:Hemorheology; D006801:Humans; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D010949:Plasma / Q000737:chemistry*; D010956:Plasmapheresis / Q000295:instrumentation*; D033081:Shear Strength; D013314:Stress, Mechanical