Computational study of an integrated microfluidic device for active separation of RBCs and cell lysis

Abstract

Separation and lysis of RBCs play an important role in diagnosis of different diseases. Although they have been partially studied in several researches, a comprehensive study on integrating both separation and lysis units on a single chip has been seen rarely in the literature. Also, the factors related to the chemical lysis process have not been investigated in detail. In this study, we introduce a novel microfluidic channel design for sequential RBC's separation and lysis. For the separation part, an active method with an electric field was applied to the cells. Besides, a novel mixer was designed for mixing the cell solution and lysis reagent. In the lysis section, we used a mathematical model to simulate cell lysis. It is shown that in electric field with intensity of 2.7 V and frequency of 70 kHz, RBCs are separated with an efficiency of 100%. It is also shown that in using a serpentine mixed with barrier, the mixing efficiency rises to 89.35%. Also, the concentration and volume fraction of lysis reagent were investigated as effecting factors on the cell lysis's efficiency. Based on the results when lysis reagent concentration and volume fraction are 15% and 83.3%, respectively, RBCs are fully lysed.