Particle Focusing and Separation through Lab-On-Chip Device by Dielectrophoresis

A Lab-On-Chip micro-device has been introduced for the focusing and separation of particles which exploits negative dielectrophoretic (nDEP) force. A 3D numerical computational model was presented to simulate the focusing and separation process. In particular, the model will solve for bioparticle movement and Joule heating. In the experimental study, the mixture of viable and nonviable yeast cells was used to demonstrate the focusing and separation effect of the designed microfluidic device. The fabricated chip performs a desired focusing result for the conditions with the electric fields frequency of 1MHz, the medium conductivity of 0.01S/m and the applied voltage V = 20Vpp. The mixture of viable and nonviable yeast cells were focused to the central plane of the micro-channel and then separated by non-equilibrium nDEP induced by the single part of the last pair of electrodes with conductivity σ = 0.01S/m, applied voltage V = 20Vpp and applied electric field frequency of 5Mhz, which validities the prediction of the proposed 3D model. This Lab-On-Chip device provides a simple and effective mean of particle focusing.