Improved magnetic separation assisted with chaotic advection flows in microfluidic channels

Abstract

We report a magnetophoretic cell separation device integrating with slanted ridge-arrays in a microfluidic channel that generate spiral flows along the microfluidic channel. The cells bound with magnetic particles follow traces of the spiral streamlines and are repeatedly transferred in a transverse direction toward the area adjacent to a ferromagnetic nickel structure. With this approach, 91.68 ± 2.18% of E. coli bound with 200 nm-magnetic nanoparticles are successfully separated from undiluted whole blood at a flow rate of 0.6 mL/h in a single microfluidic channel whereas only 23.98 ± 6.59% of E. coli are depleted in a conventional microfluidic device. Copyright© (2018) by Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society.All rights reserved.