Inertial, size-based focusing was investigated in the microfluidic labyrinth device consisting of several U-shaped turns along with circular loops. Turns are associated with tight curvature and, therefore, induce strong Dean forces for separating particles; however, systematic studies exploring this possibility do not exist. We characterized the focusing dynamics of different-sized rigid particles, cancer cells, and white blood cells over a range of fluid Reynolds numbers . Streak widths of the focused particle streams at all the turns showed intermittent fluctuations that were substantial for smaller particles and at higher . In contrast, cell streaks were less prone to fluctuations. Computational fluid dynamics simulations revealed the existence of strong turn-induced Dean vortices, which help explain the intermittent fluctuations seen in particle focusing. Next, we developed a measure of pairwise separability to evaluate the quality of separation between focused streams of two different particle sizes. Using this, we assessed the impact of a single sharp turn on separation. In general, the separability was found to vary significantly as particles traversed the tight-curvature U-turn. Comparing the separability at the entry and exit sections, we found that turns either improved or reduced separation between different-sized particles depending on . Finally, we evaluated the separability at the downstream expansion section to quantify the performance of the labyrinth device in terms of achieving size-based enrichment of particles and cells. Overall, our results show that turns are better for cell focusing and separation given that they are more immune to curvature-driven fluctuations in comparison to rigid particles.
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July 2022
Research Article|
August 26 2022
Inertial focusing of particles and cells in the microfluidic labyrinth device: Role of sharp turns
Anirudh Gangadhar
;
Anirudh Gangadhar
(Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing)
Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University
, Lubbock, Texas 79409, USA
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Siva A. Vanapalli
Siva A. Vanapalli
a)
(Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review and editing)
Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University
, Lubbock, Texas 79409, USA
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: Siva.Vanapalli@ttu.edu
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a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: Siva.Vanapalli@ttu.edu
Biomicrofluidics 16, 044114 (2022)
Article history
Received:
June 02 2022
Accepted:
July 13 2022
Citation
Anirudh Gangadhar, Siva A. Vanapalli; Inertial focusing of particles and cells in the microfluidic labyrinth device: Role of sharp turns. Biomicrofluidics 1 July 2022; 16 (4): 044114. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0101582
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