Single stream inertial focusing in a straight microchannel

Area of Science:

• Microfluidics
• Biotechnology
• Cellular analysis

Background:

• Microfluidics is crucial for precise cell and microparticle alignment.
• Traditional methods face challenges in design complexity and throughput.
• Inertial microfluidics offers higher throughput but often relies on complex flow dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a simplified inertial microfluidic focuser utilizing only inertial lift force.
• To achieve high-efficiency, single-position focusing of microparticles and cells.
• To integrate the focuser into a high-throughput, sheathless flow cytometer.

Main Methods:

• Designed an inertial microfluidic device relying solely on inertial lift force for particle focusing.
• Tested focusing efficiency with various microbead sizes and biological cells.
• Integrated the microfluidic focuser with a laser counting system for flow cytometry.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated 95-100% single-position focusing efficiency for microbeads and cells.
• Achieved high-throughput microbead counting (2200 beads/s) with 7% CV.
• Confirmed complete cell recovery and viability after passing through the system.

Conclusions:

• The developed inertial microfluidic focuser simplifies device design and operation.
• The sheathless flow cytometry system offers high precision and throughput for cellular analysis.
• This approach is versatile, compatible with various samples, and maintains cell viability.