Abstract
The interest in the development of blood analogues has been increasing recently as a consequence of the increment in the number of experimental hemodynamic studies and the difficulties associated with the manipulation of real blood in vitro because of ethical, economical or hazardous issues. Although one-phase Newtonian and non-Newtonian blood analogues can be found in the literature, there are very few studies related to the use of particulate solutions in which the particles mimic the behaviour of the red blood cells (RBCs) or erythrocytes. One of the most relevant effects related with the behaviour of the erythrocytes is a cell-free layer (CFL) formation, which consists in the migration of the RBCs towards the center of the vessel forming a cell depleted plasma region near the vessel walls, which is known to happen in in vitro microcirculatory environments. Recent studies have shown that the CFL enhancement is possible with an insertion of contraction and expansion region in a straight microchannel. These effects are useful for cell manipulation or sorting in lab-on-chip studies. In this experimental study we present particulate Newtonian and non-Newtonian solutions which resulted in a rheological blood analogue able to form a CFL, downstream of a microfluidic hyperbolic contraction, in a similar way of the one formed by healthy RBCs.
Highlights
Understanding the hemodynamics and the fluid-structure interactions of the blood flowing through the microvasculature system is of great importance, since it is related with the correct functionality of the material transport and exchange [1]
None of these approaches takes into consideration the role of the individual red blood cells (RBCs) or erythrocytes, which are the predominant component of blood, with a contribution of around 45% by volume
In this work we have developed particulate Newtonian and non-Newtonian solutions made of dextran and xanthan gum with rigid PMMA spherical particles able to mimic simultaneously both the rheological properties of RBCs in dextran and the effect of cell-free layer (CFL) formation that frequently happens in in vitro blood flow systems
Summary
Understanding the hemodynamics and the fluid-structure interactions of the blood flowing through the microvasculature system is of great importance, since it is related with the correct functionality of the material transport and exchange [1]. The complex flow behaviour of blood is closely associated with the main cardiovascular diseases and for these reasons several numerical and experimental (in vitro and in vivo) studies have been carried out during the last decades [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. In these studies Newtonian and non-Newtonian approaches for the blood flow were taken into account. This latter factor is one of the most important, since an axial migration of the deformable RBCs in the microvessels is observed when the diameter of the vessel diminishes below approximately 300 μm [12], which leads to the lowering of the apparent viscosity of blood [13]
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