Laminar-flow-based separations at the microscale
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Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Separating Beads and Cells in Multi-channel Microfluidic Devices Using Dielectrophoresis and Laminar Flow
Published on: February 5, 2011
John Oakey1, Josh Allely, David W M Marr
1Chemical Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA.
Abstract:
The natural separation maintained by microfluidic flows is employed as the basis of a particle/cell sorting device. This method of separating particulate suspensions exploits the inherent laminar nature of microscale fluid dynamics and incorporates applied fields and image cytometry to enable sorting based upon any visually identifiable difference between colloid-sized cells or particles. This technique may be used to easily isolate, separate, sort, or enrich virtually any suspension of microscale biological or colloidal particles within a microfluidic system. The entire footprint of the device described here is less than 0.01 mm(2), allowing it to be readily incorporated within highly integrated micro total analysis systems (microTAS).
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