Elasto-inertial microfluidic separation of microspheres with submicron resolution at high-throughput.

ABSTRACT: Elasto-inertial microfluidic separation offers many advantages including high throughput and separation resolution. Even though the separation efficiency highly depends on precise control of the flow conditions, no concrete guidelines have been reported yet in elasto-inertial microfluidics. Here, we propose a dimensionless analysis for precise estimation of the microsphere behaviors across the interface of Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids. Reynolds number, modified Weissenberg number, and modified elastic number are used to investigate the balance between inertial and elastic lift forces. Based on the findings, we introduce a new dimensionless number defined as the width of the Newtonian fluid stream divided by microsphere diameter. The proposed dimensionless analysis allows us to predict

SUBMITTER: Jeon H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10803301 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature