High-throughput dielectrophoretic filtration of sub-micron and micro particles in macroscopic porous materials

State-of-the-art dielectrophoretic (DEP) separation techniques provide unique properties to separate particles from a liquid or particles with different properties such as material or morphology from each other. Such separators do not operate at throughput that is sufficient for a vast fraction of separation tasks. This limitation exists because high electric field gradients are required to drive the separation which are generated by electrode microstructures that limit the maximum channel size. Here, we investigate DEP filtration, a technique that uses open porous microstructures instead of microfluidic devices to easily increase the filter cross section and, therefore, also the processable throughput by several orders of magnitude. Previously, we used simple microfluidic porous structures to derive design rules predicting the influence of key parameters on DEP filtration in real complex porous filters. Here, we study in depth DEP filtration in microporous ceramics and underpin the previously postulated dependencies by a broad parameter study (Lorenz et al., 2019). We will further verify our previous claim that the main separation mechanism is indeed positive DEP trapping by showing that we can switch from positive to negative DEP trapping when we increase the electric conductivity of the suspension. Two clearly separated trapping mechanisms (positive and negative DEP trapping) at different conductivities can be observed, and the transition between them matches theoretical predictions. This lays the foundation for selective particle trapping, and the results are a major step towards DEP filtration at high throughput to solve existing separation problems such as scrap recovery or cell separation in liquid biopsy. Graphical abstract.