Coupling Contraction-expansion Arrays with Spiral Microchannels to Enhance Microfluidic-Based Particle/Cell Separation

In the field of microfluidic inertial-based focusing of suspended particles, no research has been conducted to bring together two of the main directions of research, trapezoid spiral microchannels and contraction-expansion array (CEA)s. This paper addresses that gap by investigating two proposed CEA...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of computational fluid dynamics 2022-01, Vol.36 (1), p.63-90
Main Authors: Shahraki, Zahra Hashemi, Navidbakhsh, Mahdi, Taylor, Robert A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arrays
Conservation equations
Contraction expansion array (CEA)
Coupling
Dean flow
Flow rates
Flow velocity
inertial forces
Lysis
Microchannels
microfluidic
Microfluidics
Momentum
numerical simulation
particle focusing
Probability theory
Separation
spiral microchannels
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Summary:In the field of microfluidic inertial-based focusing of suspended particles, no research has been conducted to bring together two of the main directions of research, trapezoid spiral microchannels and contraction-expansion array (CEA)s. This paper addresses that gap by investigating two proposed CEAs (smooth and abrupt) inside a spiral channel compared to a uniform cross-section design at three different flow rates (i.e. 3, 6, and . The conservation equations of mass and momentum with a Lagrangian'-Eulerian (LE) approach are solved in OpenFOAM, using a four-way coupling between the phases. The results indicate that adding smooth transition CEAs to spiral microchannels, at a nominal flow rate , decreases the focusing duration (by about 29%) and the cell lysis probability (by about 52%) while keeping the separation efficiency high (nearly 100%). Overall, this study opens a promising new, integrated direction for passive microfluidic focusing of particles.
ISSN:1061-8562
1029-0257
DOI:10.1080/10618562.2022.2053114