Abdullah Al Amin

Microfluidic Particle Separation

Cell separation is one of the most required processes in the areas of clinical diagnostics, cellular analysis, biological and environmental microbiological processes. Continuous efficient separation of microparticles at relatively high throughput has been a challenge for Lab on Chip (LOC) devices used in biological and environmental applications. In this thesis, a differential area Fermat spiral microfluidic device that is capable of high throughout particle separation is investigated. The device employs a differential area by varying width along with a Fermat spiral microchannel to maintain force ratio close to unity at relatively higher flow rate that facilitates focusing and separation of microparticles at higher throughput. Numerical investigations were performed to validate the performance of the proposed device. Consequently, experiments are performed and it is shown that using the differential Fermat design with particle diameter to channel height ratio of 0.08~0.16; the device can continuously sort 4.6μm and 9.94μm spherical particle at a flow rate of 700μL. To demonstrate the capability of high throughput separation of differently sized microparticles, numerical simulation of particle trajectories was performed at a flow rate of ~1700μL/min.