Abstract
Advances in lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices have led to significant improvements in the on-chip manipulation, separation, sorting, and isolation of particles and cells. Among various LOC-based approaches such as inertia-based methods, acoustophoresis, and magnetophoresis, the planar-slanted-electrode dielectrophoresis (DEP) method has demonstrated great potential as a label-free, cost-effective, and user-friendly approach. However, the devices built based on this method suffer from low flow throughput compared to devices functioning based on other LOC-based manipulation approaches. In order to overcome this obstacle, the geometrical parameters of these types of DEP-based devices must be studied to increase the effectiveness of DEP manipulation. With the consideration of both numerical and experimental studies, this paper studies the geometrical factors of a LOC platform consisting of tilted planar electrodes with the goal of achieving higher throughput in continuous manipulation of polystyrene particles. COMSOL Multiphysics software was used to study the effect of the electrodes geometry on the induced electric field. The simulation results show that by increasing the electrode’s width and decreasing the electrode’s spacing, higher DEP force is generated. Furthermore, the experimental outcomes indicated that lower channel height, higher voltage, and larger particle size resulted in the most improvement to DEP manipulation. Additionally, the experimental results demonstrated that slanted electrodes with an angle of 8° with respect to the direction of flow provide a more effective configuration.
Highlights
Advances in lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices have led to significant improvements in the on-chip manipulation, separation, sorting, and isolation of particles and cells
DEP is a label-free method which makes it more cost-effective compared to other active methods such as magnetophoresis, fluorescent activated cell sorters (FACS) and magnetic activated cell sorters (MACS)
We investigated the effect of the electrodes’ geometry and channel height on DEP-based manipulation of particles
Summary
Advances in lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices have led to significant improvements in the on-chip manipulation, separation, sorting, and isolation of particles and cells. Over the past two decades, single-cell manipulation and analysis methods have improved significantly due to advances in microfluidic cell manipulation m ethods[1,2] These methods can be broadly categorized as either passive or active. By deactivating the electric field, the channel can be washed to collect the formerly trapped particles This is a simple and effective technique, interest in pDEP has declined over the years due to its low throughput. Continuous DEP-based lateral displacement of particles is another technique that has garnered attention due to its higher throughput 25,26 For this purpose, electrodes can be patterned into different 2D or 3D configurations (such as trapezoidal electrode arrays[27], spiral e lectrodes[28], liquid-based e lectrodes[29], slanted interdigitated[30,31,32] and interdigitated e lectrodes33–35), as well as insulator-based D EP36
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