Abstract
Understanding the behavior of a single particle flowing in a microchannel is a necessary step in designing and optimizing efficient microfluidic devices for the separation, concentration, counting, detecting, sorting, or mixing of particles in suspension. Although the inertial migration of spherical particles has been deeply investigated in the last two decades, most of the targeted applications involve shaped particles whose behavior in microflows is still far from being completely understood. While traveling in a channel, a particle both rotates and translates: it translates in the streamwise direction driven by the fluid flow but also in the cross-section perpendicular to the streamwise direction due to inertial effects. In addition, particles’ rotation and translation motions are coupled. Most of the existing works investigating the transport of particles in microchannels decouple their rotational and lateral migration behaviors: particle rotation is mainly studied in simple shear flows, whereas lateral migration is neglected, and studies on lateral migration mostly focus on spherical particles whose rotational behavior is simple. The aim of this review is to provide a summary of the different works existing in the literature on the inertial migration and the rotational behavior of non-spherical particles with a focus and discussion on the remaining scientific challenges in this field.
Highlights
These works are classified according to the phenomena investigated, the type of flow, and the approach adopted by the researchers
Hur et al [55] experimentally showed that neutrally buoyant discs, rods, and doublets migrate toward the channel center at low Reynolds numbers (Re < 14)
This review aimed to summarize and compare recent works in the literature dealing with the transport of non-spherical particles in straight square microchannels
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. In the past decade, miniaturized particle separation systems using microfluidic flows have been developed: they allow lowering the sample volumes and the energetic cost and increasing the adaptability to automation and the portability of the devices. These microsystems often include a preliminary stage in which the particles are focused into a tight stream. Inertial focusing techniques have gained significant attention, since they only rely on the behavior of the particles in the channel without using any sheath flows or outer forces This behavior is controlled by the hydrodynamic interactions between the fluid and the particles and between the different particles flowing together.
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