Abstract
Inertial focusing plays a major role in size-based cell separation or enrichment for microfluidic applications in many medical areas such as diagnostics and treatment. These applications often deal with suspensions of different particles which cause interactions between particles with different diameters such as particle–particle collision. In this study, particle–particle interaction in a laminar flow through a low aspect ratio alternating and repetitive microchannel is investigated both numerically and experimentally. It is revealed that particle–particle collision affects high quality particle focusing. computational fluid dynamics simulations are conducted for demonstrating the effect of the flow field in the transverse cross-section on the focusing quality and position. The experiments and simulations both revealed that if the flow is seeded with a mixture of particles of 3.3 and 9.9 µm diameters, the quality of focusing intensity is degenerated compared to the focusing features obtained by particles with a diameter of 9.9 µm solely. The results clearly show that particle–particle collision between the 3.3 and 9.9 µm particles has a negative effect on particle focusing behavior of the 9.9 µm particles.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ANSYS Fluent Theory Guide, Release 15.0 (2013)
Berger S, Talbot L (1983) Flow in curved pipes. Annu Rev Fluid Mech 15:461–512
Bhagat AAS, Kuntaegowdanahalli SS, Papautsky I (2008) Continuous particle separation in spiral microchannels using Dean flows and differential migration. Lab Chip 8(11):1906–1914. https://doi.org/10.1039/B807107A
Dean WR (1928) Fluid motion in a curved channel. Proc Math Phys Eng Sci 121(787):402–420
Di Carlo D (2009) Inertial microfluidics. Lab Chip 9(21):3038–3046. https://doi.org/10.1039/B912547G
Di Carlo D, Irimia D, Tompkins R, Toner M (2007) Continuous inertial focusing, ordering, and separation of particles in microchannels. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104(48):18892–18897. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0704958104
Di Carlo D, Edd JF, Irimia D, Tompkins RG, Toner M (2008) Equilibrium separation and filtration of particles using differential inertial focusing. Anal Chem 80(6):2204–2211. https://doi.org/10.1021/ac702283m
Falcon M (1984) Secondary flow in curved open channels. Annu Rev Fluid Mech 16:179–193
Gossett DR, Di Carlo D (2009) Particle focusing mechanisms in curving confined flows. Anal Chem 81(20):8459–8465. https://doi.org/10.1021/ac901306y
Green JV, Kniazeva T, Abedi M, Sokhey DS, Taslim ME, Murthy SK (2008) Effect of channel geometry on cell adhesion in microfluidic devices. Lab Chip 9(5):677–685. https://doi.org/10.1039/B813516A
Ho BP, Leal LG (1974) Inertial migration of rigid spheres in two dimensional unidirectional flows. J Fluid Mech 65(2):365–400. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112074001431
Holm SH, Beech JP, Barrett MP, Tegenfeldt JO (2011) Separation of parasites from human blood using deterministic lateral displacement. Lab Chip 11(7):1326–1332. https://doi.org/10.1039/C0LC00560F
Huang LR, Cox EC, Austin RH, Sturm JC (2004) Continuous particle separation through deterministic lateral displacement. Science 304:987–990. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094567
Jaber S, Sonmez U, Trabzon L (2017) Super-enhanced particle focusing in a novel microchannel geometry using inertial microfluidics. J Micromech Microeng 27(6):065003
Mao X, Lin SC, Dong C, Huang T (2009) Single-layer planar on-chip flow cytometer using microfluidic drifting based three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamic focusing. Lab Chip 9:1583–1589. https://doi.org/10.1039/B820138B
Martel JM, Toner M (2012) Inertial focusing dynamics in spiral microchannels. Phys Fluids 24(3):032001. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3681228
Martel JM, Toner M (2014) Inertial focusing in microfluidics. Annu Rev Biomed Eng 16(1):371–396. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-bioeng-121813-120704
Nam J, Namgung B, Lim CT, Bae JE, Leo HL, Cho KS, Kim S (2015) Microfluidic device for sheathless particle focusing and separation using a viscoelastic fluid. J Chromatogr A 1406:244–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2015.06.029
Oakey J, Applegate R Jr, Arellano E, Di Carlo D (2010) Particle focusing in staged inertial microfluidic devices for flow cytometry. Anal Chem 82:3862–3867. https://doi.org/10.1021/ac100387b
Ookawara S, Higashi R, Street D, Ogawa K (2004) Feasibility study on concentration of slurry and classification of contained particles by microchannel. Chem Eng J 101(1):171–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2003.11.008
Radisic M, Iyer RK, Murthy SK (2006) Micro- and nanotechnology in cell separation. Int J Nanomed 1:3–14
Ramachandraiah H, Ardabili S, Faridi AM, Gantelius J, Kowalewski JM, Mårtensson G, Russom A (2014) Dean flow-coupled inertial focusing in curved channels. Biomicrofluidics 8(3):034117. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4884306
Saffman PG (1965) The lift on a small sphere in a slow shear flow. J Fluid Mech 22(2):385–400. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112065000824
Segré G, Silberberg A (1961) Radial particle displacements in Poiseuille flow of suspensions. Nature 189(4760):209–210. https://doi.org/10.1038/189209a0
Toner M, Irimia D (2005) Blood-on-a-chip. Annu Rev Biomed Eng 7:77–103. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.bioeng.7.011205.135108
Wang L, Dandy DS (2017) High-throughput inertial focusing of micrometer- and sub-micrometer-sized particles separation. Adv Sci 4:1700153. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201700153
Winer MH, Ahmadi A, Cheung KC (2014) Transient inertial flows: A new degree of freedom for particle focusing in microfluidic channels. In: Micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), 2014 IEEE 27th international conference on. IEEE, pp 1051–1054
Yang S, Kim JY, Lee SJ, Kim JM (2011) Sheathless elasto-inertial particle focusing and continuous separation in a straight rectangular microchannel. Lab Chip 11:266–273. https://doi.org/10.1039/C0LC00102C
Zuvin M, Mansur N, Birol SZ, Sayi-Yazgan A, Trabzon L (2016) Human breast cancer cell enrichment by Dean flow driven microfluidic channels. Microsyst Technol 22(3):645–652. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-015-2425-7
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) through the project ‘Investigation on the Effects of Mechanical Forces on Endothel Cells Behavior by Using Microfluidics Systems in the domain of Mechanobiology’ with the Grant number 114R037.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cadirci, S., Ince, D., Ghanem, I. et al. Experimental and numerical investigation on particle–particle interaction of multi-particle separation in an alternating and repetitive microchannel. Microsyst Technol 25, 307–318 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-018-3965-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-018-3965-4