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Updated: Dec 25, 2025

Merging Ion Concentration Polarization between Juxtaposed Ion Exchange Membranes to Block the Propagation of the Polarization Zone
Published on: February 23, 2017
Free Flow Ion Concentration Polarization Focusing (FF-ICPF)
Vasileios A Papadimitriou1, Loes I Segerink1, Jan C T Eijkel1
1BIOS Lab on a Chip group, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, Max Planck Centre for Complex Fluid Dynamics and Technical Medical Centre, University of Twente, Enschede 7500 AE, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Electrokinetic separation techniques in microfluidics are a powerful analytical chemistry tool, although an inherent limitation of microfluidics is their low sample throughput. In this article we report a free-flow variant of an electrokinetic focusing method, namely ion concentration polarization focusing (ICPF). The analytes flow continuously through the system via pressure driven flow while they separate and concentrate perpendicularly to the flow by ICPF. We demonstrate free flow ion concentration polarization focusing (FF-ICPF) in two operating modes, namely peak and plateau modes. Additionally, we showed the separation resolution could be improved by the use of an electrophoretic spacer. We report a concentration factor of 10 in human blood plasma in continuous flow at a flow rate of 15 μL min-1.
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