Sorting of Particles Using Inertial Focusing and Laminar Vortex Technology: A Review

Abstract

The capability of isolating and sorting specific types of cells is crucial in life science, particularly for the early diagnosis of lethal diseases and monitoring of medical treatments. Among all the micro-fluidics techniques for cell sorting, inertial focusing combined with the laminar vortex technology is a powerful method to isolate cells from flowing samples in an efficient manner. This label-free method does not require any external force to be applied, and allows high throughput and continuous sample separation, thus offering a high filtration efficiency over a wide range of particle sizes. Although rather recent, this technology and its applications are rapidly growing, thanks to the development of new chip designs, the employment of new materials and microfabrication technologies. In this review, a comprehensive overview is provided on the most relevant works which employ inertial focusing and laminar vortex technology to sort particles. After briefly summarizing the other cells sorting techniques, highlighting their limitations, the physical mechanisms involved in particle trapping and sorting are described. Then, the materials and microfabrication methods used to implement this technology on miniaturized devices are illustrated. The most relevant evolution steps in the chips design are discussed, and their performances critically analyzed to suggest future developments of this technology.

Influence of the inlet velocity profile on the flow stability in a symmetric channel expansion

“…(2009), Chang et al. (2010) or Volpe, Gaudiuso & Ancona (2019), which may possibly be improved by controlling the size of the recirculation zones; (ii) microreactors such as the microcrystallizer described by (Rimez et al. 2019), which may also be improved by promoting passive mixing.…”

“…At the same time, Cantwell, Barkley & Blackburn (2010) demonstrated that sudden expansions cause the amplification of the inlet noise and Zhang & Luo (2018) demonstrated that sudden constrictions may induce an increase of the swirl intensity, which therefore promotes mixing. All these parameters should be in the scope of future studies and may eventually lead to help the design of the following: (i) sorting microsystems such as those described by Kadivar & Farrokhbin (2017), Park et al (2009), Chang et al (2010) or Volpe, Gaudiuso & Ancona (2019), which may possibly be improved by controlling the size of the recirculation zones; (ii) microreactors such as the microcrystallizer described by (Rimez et al 2019), which may also be improved by promoting passive mixing. k| Re = 400 FIGURE 10.…”

Surface Wettability and Electrical Resistance Analysis of Droplets on Indium-Tin-Oxide Glass Fabricated Using an Ultraviolet Laser System

“…Microfluidics technology refers to the precision control and manipulation of fluids at the submillimeter scale. Generally, microfluidic systems transport, separate, and mix the fluids, and this technology has been applied in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) chip, micropropulsion, microthermal, and lab-on-a-chip technology [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Generally, soft lithography technology [ 4 ] is used to define the pattern and channel on substrates, such as wafer or glass.…”

One-Step Femtosecond Laser Stealth Dicing of Quartz

“…Transparent materials are used in an increasing number of applications, ranging from microelectronics [1], to microfluidics [2,3] and optoelectronics [4]. In particular, glass, quartz and sapphire, due to their broad spectral band of light transmission, hardness and scratch-resistance, are good candidates for display components of portable mobile electronics, as light emitting diode (LED) substrates, protection mirrors of mobile phone cameras, smartwatches, etc.…”