Blood Particulate Analogue Fluids: A Review

Abstract

Microfluidics has proven to be an extraordinary working platform to mimic and study blood flow phenomena and the dynamics of components of the human microcirculatory system. However, the use of real blood increases the complexity to perform these kinds of in vitro blood experiments due to diverse problems such as coagulation, sample storage, and handling problems. For this reason, interest in the development of fluids with rheological properties similar to those of real blood has grown over the last years. The inclusion of microparticles in blood analogue fluids is essential to reproduce multiphase effects taking place in a microcirculatory system, such as the cell-free layer (CFL) and Fähraeus–Lindqvist effect. In this review, we summarize the progress made in the last twenty years. Size, shape, mechanical properties, and even biological functionalities of microparticles produced/used to mimic red blood cells (RBCs) are critically exposed and analyzed. The methods developed to fabricate these RBC templates are also shown. The dynamic flow/rheology of blood particulate analogue fluids proposed in the literature (with different particle concentrations, in most of the cases, relatively low) is shown and discussed in-depth. Although there have been many advances, the development of a reliable blood particulate analogue fluid, with around 45% by volume of microparticles, continues to be a big challenge.

Fire-Shaped Nozzles to Produce a Stress Peak for Deformability Studies

“…Our DI results for PDMS microparticles agreed with those reported in the literature for similar flow conditions and 2D rectangular microchannels (see, e.g., [ 5 , 12 , 37 ] and references therein).…”

“…Microfluidic devices have the potential to become common diagnosis tools for cell deformability (see [ 11 , 12 ] and references therein). The combination of these systems with high-speed imaging has enabled the study of the cell behavior in the flow [ 13 , 14 ].…”

Properties and Applications of PDMS for Biomedical Engineering: A Review

“…Blood analogues are fluids commonly used to perform hemodynamic experiments due mainly to safety problems related to the use of real blood in these experiments. Initially, blood analogues were simple fluids composed by mixtures of glycerol and water or by xanthan gum diluted in glycerine and/or water [ 153 , 154 ]. However, by using these kinds of blood analogues, it is not possible to study different kinds of flow phenomena that happen at the micro scale level, such as the cell-free layer, plasma skimming and cell margination [ 101 , 155 , 156 ].…”

Polydimethylsiloxane Composites Characterization and Its Applications: A Review

“…It is a highly used silicon-based polymer with good chemical and thermal stability [ 4 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], biocompatibility [ 18 , 19 , 20 ], corrosion resistance [ 21 , 22 ], flexibility [ 23 , 24 , 25 ], repeatability [ 26 ], a low cost [ 27 ], ease of use, chemically inertia, hyperplastic characteristics, and gas permeability [ 3 , 28 ]. Thus, PDMS has been used in several fields and systems (see Figure 1 ), such as microfluidics and nanofluidics [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ], biomodels [ 38 , 39 ], organ-on-a-chip platforms [ 40 , 41 ], blood analogues [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ], electronic components [ 47 ], membranes for filtering and pervaporation [ 48 , 49 , 50 ], sensors [ 51 , 52 , 53 ], optical and thermal devices [ 54 , 55 , 56 ], coatings [ 57 , 58 , 59 ], etc. However, several PDMS applications can be compromised due to its low mechanical properties, such as low elasticity modulus and...…”