Abstract
Manipulation of high-density materials, such as crystals and liquid condensates, is of great importance for many applications, including serial crystallography, structural and molecular biology, chemistry, and medicine. In this work, we describe an acoustic technique to focus and harvest flowing crystals and liquid condensates. Moreover, we show, based on numerical simulations, that the acoustic waves can be used for size-based particle (crystals, droplets, etc.) separation. This is an essential technological step in biological research, medical applications, and industrial processes. The presented technology offers high precision, biocompatibility, ease of use and additionally, is non-invasive and inexpensive. With the recent advent of X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) technology and the associated enormous importance of a thin jet of crystals, this technology might pave the way to a novel type of XFEL injector.
Highlights
Microfluidic technologies benefit from a high surface to volume ratio, well-defined residence time, and precise control over mass and heat transfer
Rising the local density of crystals or high-density droplets by focusing them in a specific location increases the signal to noise ratio significantly. This facilitates the detection and could enable easier characterization of the material of interest. This is especially of relevance in current serial crystallography experiments where a thin jet is brought in the X-ray beam
Miconazole nitrate crystals were grown in the microfluidic channel until an average size of 15 ± 3 μm (n = 17) and focused rapidly upon activation of the acoustic field (Figure 2a, Supplementary Materials: Video S1)
Summary
Microfluidic technologies benefit from a high surface to volume ratio, well-defined residence time, and precise control over mass and heat transfer This allows for the optimization of crystallization conditions and the formation of high-quality crystals [1,2,3]. Many different devices, such as optical tweezers [5], acoustic wave-based devices [4,6,7,8], and robotic devices [9,10], have been made to automate the transfer of microcrystals from the growth plate to the X-ray beam These techniques are sophisticated, expensive, and might create unwanted forces which can compromise the quality of the data set and alter the structure of the crystal. In contrast with previous methods, acoustofluidic devices allow for X-ray analysis to be performed in flowing streams, thereby eliminating the crystal mounting step that might be detrimental to the quality of the crystal and the data [11]
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