Investigation on Inertial Sorter Coupled with Magnetophoretic Effect for Nonmagnetic Microparticles

Abstract

The sizes of most prokaryotic cells are several microns. It is very difficult to separate cells with similar sizes. A sorter with a contraction–expansion microchannel and applied magnetic field is designed to sort microparticles with diameters of 3, 4 and 5 microns. To evaluate the sorting efficiency of the designed sorter, numerical simulations for calculating the distributions of microparticles with similar sizes were carried out for various magnetic fields, inlet velocities, sheath flow ratios and structural parameters. The numerical results indicate that micro-particles with diameters of 3, 4 and 5 microns can be sorted efficiently in such a sorter within appropriate parameters. Furthermore, it is shown that a bigger particle size and more powerful magnetic field can result in a greater lateral migration of microparticles. The sorting efficiency of microparticles promotes a lower inlet velocity and greater sheath flow ratios. A smaller contraction–expansion ratio can induce a greater space between particle-bands. Finally, the micro particle image velocity (micro-PIV) experiments were conducted to obtain the bandwidths and spaces between particle-bands. The comparisons between the numerical and experimental results show a good agreement and make the validity of the numerical results certain.

Neutrally Buoyant Particle Migration in Poiseuille Flow Driven by Pulsatile Velocity

“…Shao et al [20] found the inner annulus for elevated Re by using the fictitious domain method. Abbas et al [21] mentioned that the equilibrium position (TEP) depends exclusively on Re and k. Recently, inertial microfluidics can precisely separate particles with or without extra external force field by realizing SS effect [22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

“…Abbas et al [ 21 ] mentioned that the equilibrium position (TEP) depends exclusively on and . Recently, inertial microfluidics can precisely separate particles with or without extra external force field by realizing SS effect [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ].…”

A Review on Heat Transfer of Nanofluids by Applied Electric Field or Magnetic Field

“…Common methods include changing the shape of nanoparticles [21], heat radiation [22][23][24][25][26][27], applied electric field [28,29], applied magnetic field [30] and applied electromagnetic field [31]. The heat transfer enhancement by an applied electric or magnetic field is because the electric force or magnetic force on nanoparticles can change the microstructure of nanofluid and movement of nanoparticles [32]. In addition, the interplay among the magnetic field, electric field, flow field and temperature field can result in more severe chaotic convection.…”

Editorial for the Special Issue on Inertial Microfluidics

“…The remainder of this Special Issue includes original research articles on technical innovations of inertial microfluidics for various applications [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Kim et al [ 5 ] report the separation of two freshwater, commercially important, microalgal species, namely, Chlorella Vulgaris and Hematococcus Pluvialis.…”

“…This highly pure cell purification enabled the expansion of the target organism without the risk of contamination as the minority organism’s culturability of significantly suppressed. In the article by Du et al [ 6 ], on-chip integration of magnetophoresis and inertial focusing was demonstrated for size-based separation of particles with very small size differences (3, 4, and 5 μm). Through systematic numerical and experimental investigations, the optimum conditions to achieve the preferred particle distribution band separation sufficient for separation were determined to be 0.7 × 10 5 A/m, 4, and 0.5 for magnetic intensity, sheath flow ratio, and the contraction–expansion ratio, respectively, while maintaining the sum of particle solution and sheath flow flowrate identical.…”