Magnetophoretic Manipulation in Microsystem Using I-pdms Microstructures

This paper reports the use of a recent composite material, i-PDMS, made of carbonyl iron microparticles mixed in a PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) matrix, for magnetophoretic functions such as capture and separation. Indeed, we demonstrated that this composite can locally generate high magnetic field gradients when placed between two permanent magnets. We first investigated the molding resolution offered by i-PDMS to obtain microstructures of various sizes and shapes. Then, we implemented 500 μm i-PDMS microstructures in a microfluidic channel and studied the influence of flow rate on the trapping and deviation of paramagnetic beads flowing at the neighborhood of the composite material.