Cascading and parallelising curvilinear inertial focusing systems for high volume, wide size distribution, separation and concentration of particles

Miller, B., Jimenez, M. and Bridle, H. (2017) Cascading and parallelising curvilinear inertial focusing systems for high volume, wide size distribution, separation and concentration of particles. Scientific Reports, 6, 36386. (doi: 10.1038/srep36386) (PMID:27808244) (PMCID:PMC5093461)

Abstract

Inertial focusing is a microfluidic based separation and concentration technology that has expanded rapidly in the last few years. Throughput is high compared to other microfluidic approaches although sample volumes have typically remained in the millilitre range. Here we present a strategy for achieving rapid high volume processing with stacked and cascaded inertial focusing systems, allowing for separation and concentration of particles with a large size range, demonstrated here from 30 μm–300 μm. The system is based on curved channels, in a novel toroidal configuration and a stack of 20 devices has been shown to operate at 1 L/min. Recirculation allows for efficient removal of large particles whereas a cascading strategy enables sequential removal of particles down to a final stage where the target particle size can be concentrated. The demonstration of curved stacked channels operating in a cascaded manner allows for high throughput applications, potentially replacing filtration in applications such as environmental monitoring, industrial cleaning processes, biomedical and bioprocessing and many more.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: H.B. would like to acknowledge her Royal Academy of Engineering/EPSRC Fellowship as well as EU “Aquavalens” funding. M.J. would like to acknowledge the “Aquavalens” funding and B.M. would like to acknowledge his BBSRC Case Studentship Award and the Industrial Sponsor Scottish Water. H.B., M.J. and B.M. would like to thank Naïa Daugareil for her help.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Jimenez, Dr Melanie
• Authors: Miller, B., Jimenez, M., and Bridle, H.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
• Journal Name: Scientific Reports
• Publisher: Nature Research
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• ISSN (Online): 2045-2322
• Published Online: 03 November 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Scientific Reports 6(1):36386
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License