Premium
A microfluidic device for separating erythrocytes polluted by lead (II) from a continuous bloodstream flow
Author(s) -
Wang MingWen
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/elps.201100354
Subject(s) - microfluidics , microchannel , field flow fractionation , sorting , lead (geology) , whole blood , continuous flow , flow (mathematics) , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , nanotechnology , chromatography , fractionation , mechanics , biology , computer science , physics , paleontology , immunology , programming language
To sort and separate erythrocytes contaminated by lead (II) from whole bloodstream flow, the first step is to use a microchannel to transport the blood cells into a microdevice. Within the device, polluted erythrocytes can be separated from the bloodstream by applying local dielectrophoretic ( DEP ) forces. Exploiting the fact that P b 2+ ions attach to the membranes of the erythrocytes, we utilize the microfluidic DEP device to perform property‐based fractionation of the blood samples and to separate the polluted erythrocytes from the continuous bloodstream flow. Atomic absorption spectrometer analysis reveals that, to remove lead‐polluted erythrocytes, the most effective driving velocity was less than 0.1 cm/s through our microfluidic DEP device, based on an applied power of 10 V peak‐peak and a frequency of 15.5 MHz AC field. We were able to remove 80% of the polluted erythrocytes. Using gentle DEP manipulating techniques to efficiently sort unique cells within a complex biological sample may potentially allow biological sorting to be performed outside of hospitals, in facilities without biological analyzing equipment.