A simulation study of cell separation in microfluidic channel based on hydrodynamic principle

Abstract

Separation micro-particles based on physical characteristics is important in numerous applications such as diagnostics, biological analyses, food industries and chemical processing. Microfluidic devices have emerged as a multifunctional and powerful platform for separation ranging from nano-micro sized particles to biological cells. This paper presents a simulation study for microparticle separation in a microfluidic channel based on hydrodynamic technique. By exploiting the hydrodynamic properties of the fluid flow and physical characteristics of microparticles, effective size-based separation is demonstrated. The objectives of the simulations are to obtain the appropriate channels’ angle to separate micro-particle. The analysis of effects of taper angle for microparticle separation was carried out using numerical solutions from the finite element ABAQUS-FEA software. The taper angles 20ºand 25ºare successfully separate the mixture of 1000 kgm-3 and 10000 kgm-3 density microparticle.