Revisit of wall-induced lateral migration in particle electrophoresis through a straight rectangular microchannel:
Zhijian Liu1,2, Di Li2, Maryam Saffarian3
1College of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Previous studies have reported a lateral migration in particle electrophoresis through a straight rectangular microchannel. This phenomenon arises from the inherent wall-induced electrical lift that can be exploited to focus and separate particles for microfluidic applications. Such a dielectrophoretic-like force has been recently found to vary with the buffer concentration. We demonstrate in this work that the particle zeta potential also has a significant effect on the wall-induced electrical lift. We perform an experimental study of the lateral migration of equal-sized polystyrene particles with varying surface charges under identical electrokinetic flow conditions. Surprisingly, an enhanced focusing is observed for particles with a faster electrokinetic motion, which indicates a substantially larger electrical lift for particles with a smaller zeta potential. We speculate this phenomenon may be correlated with the particle surface conduction that is a strong function of particle and fluid properties.
Related Concept Videos
Subatomic Particles
The Nucleosome Core Particle
The paradox
Nucleosomes, paradoxically, perform two opposite functions simultaneously. On the one hand, their main responsibility is to protect the delicate DNA strands from physical damage and help achieve a higher compaction ratio. While on the other hand, they must allow polymerase enzymes to access DNA...
The Nucleosome Core Particle
Nucleosomes, paradoxically, perform two opposite functions simultaneously. On the one hand, their primary aim is to protect the delicate DNA strands from physical damage and help achieve a higher compaction ratio. On the other hand, they must allow polymerase enzymes to access histone-bound DNA during...
Basic Postulates of Kinetic Molecular Theory: Particle Size, Energy, and Collision
Factors Affecting Dissolution: Particle Size and Effective Surface Area
Equilibrium Conditions for a Particle
To understand the concept of equilibrium, let us first consider the forces acting on an object. When different forces act on an object, they can...


