Abstract
Inertial microfluidics enables fluid and particle manipulation for biomedical and clinical applications. Herein, we developed a simple semicircular microchannel with an ultra-low aspect ratio to interrogate the unique formations of the helical vortex and Dean vortex by introducing order micro-obstacles. The purposeful and powerful regulation of dimensional confinement in the microchannel achieved significantly improved fluid mixing effects and fluid and particle manipulation in a high-throughput, highly efficient and easy-to-use way. Together, the results offer insights into the geometry-induced multi-vortex mechanism, which may contribute to simple, passive, continuous operations for biochemical and clinical applications, such as the detection and isolation of circulating tumor cells for cancer diagnostics.
Highlights
The effective manipulation of fluid and particles is critical to a wide range of applications in biological studies and clinical applications [1,2,3]
The existence of a helical vortex is distinct from vortex flow in the separation zone of the straight channel and dean vortex in the curved channel [36,37,38]
The formation of helical vortexes is determined by a number of factors [8,9,11]
Summary
The effective manipulation of fluid and particles is critical to a wide range of applications in biological studies and clinical applications [1,2,3]. As micro-fabrication equipment is improving, microfluidics has generally been known as a progressive technology for fluid and particle/cell manipulation by applying active and passive principles in micro/nanoscale channels [4,5,6]. A range of inventive and delicate microchannel geometries that control vortex performance by complying with natural inertial effects at high flow rate have been demonstrated [10,11,12]. The horizontal helical vortex can be generated in the straight channels with expansion–contraction arrays under a certain flow rate. Such a vortex has been extensively employed in fluid and particle manipulation (e.g., focusing, mixing, trapping and isolation) [7,9]. An effective technique and highly easy production method for achieving a vertical Dean vortex and horizontal helical vortex with uncomplicated configuration have remained largely out of reach
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