Influence of the obstacles on dielectrophoresis-assisted separation in microfluidic devices for cancerous cells

Numerical simulation on performance improvement for blood cell separation under sheath-assisted dielectrophoresis

“…(4) where ε * cyt and ε * mem are the complex permittivity of the nucleus and cytoplasm, r is the radius of the cell, d is the thickness of the cell membrane. Ohm's law, Gauss's law, and continuity equations for the current are employed to accurately model the electric field in the microfluidic chip [23], the governing equations are described as follows.…”

Novel Approaches Concerning the Numerical Modeling of Particle and Cell Separation in Microchannels: A Review

“…where ε m is the permittivity of the medium, K(ω) is the Clausius-Mossotti factor that depends on the angular frequency of the applied field ω, E is the electric field, and ∈ * p and ∈ * m are the complex permittivities of the particle/cell and the medium, which are a function of the permittivity and conductivity of the material and the angular frequency of the applied electric field ω [15,80]. Either Direct or Alternating Current (DC or AC, respectively) sources can be employed to create a nonuniform electric field [46], but AC is chosen in most of the studies due to the low input voltage requirements, which avoids Joule heating effects and cell/particle damage [47,54].…”

“…Similarly, Zhang and Chen performed a numerical study to find the optimum conditions (medium parameters, voltage, and frequency) for the DEP separation of blood cells [9]. In a different study [54], CTCs were separated from RBCs via DEP using microchannels with flow obstacles. A finite element simulation was conducted to predict the cell trajectories and revealed that the device with rectangular obstacles showed the best performance, achieving 100% separation efficiency and purity for cancerous cells in the specific outlets [54].…”

“…In a different study [54], CTCs were separated from RBCs via DEP using microchannels with flow obstacles. A finite element simulation was conducted to predict the cell trajectories and revealed that the device with rectangular obstacles showed the best performance, achieving 100% separation efficiency and purity for cancerous cells in the specific outlets [54]. On the other hand, the optimization of electrode location and operating voltages were numerically performed by Kumar et al [46].…”

Conductivity-difference-enhanced DC dielectrophoretic particle separation in a microfluidic chip

“…Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a popular electrokinetic method for separating particles and cells based on their size difference. 3–11 The DEP phenomenon is due to the existence of a non-uniform electric field, 12–14 and thus the magnitude of the DEP force experienced by a particle is proportional to the gradient of the square of the applied electric field. Increasing the DEP force is important for accurate particle manipulation.…”