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Insulator-based dielectrophoretic (iDEP) microdevices have been limited to work with Newtonian fluids. We report an experimental study of the fluid rheological effects on iDEP focusing and trapping of polystyrene particles in polyethylene oxide, xanthan gum, and polyacrylamide solutions through a constricted microchannel. Particle focusing and trapping in the mildly viscoelastic polyethylene oxide solution are slightly weaker than in the Newtonian buffer. They are, however, significantly improved in the strongly viscoelastic and shear thinning polyacrylamide solution. These observed particle focusing behaviors exhibit a similar trend with respect to electric field, consistent with a revised theoretical analysis for iDEP focusing in non-Newtonian fluids. No apparent focusing of particles is achieved in the xanthan gum solution, though the iDEP trapping can take place under a much larger electric field than the other fluids. This is attributed to the strong shear thinning-induced influences on both the electroosmotic flow and electrokinetic/dielectrophoretic motions.

A novel microfluidic method of counting the number of particles while they are separated by a localized DC-dielectrophoresis force was presented. Liquid flow from a wide microchannel forces the to-be-detected particles to pass over a small orifice on a side wall of the sample input channel. A direct current (DC) voltage applied across the small orifice and a strong electric field gradient is generated at the corners of the orifice for dielectrophoretic particle separation. Particle counting is achieved by detecting the electric current change caused by the being-separated particle near the sensing orifice. In this way, particles can be separate and in situ counted at the same time. Numerical simulations show that particle separation is achieved at the edge of the sensing orifice where the strength of the electric field gradient is the largest. Separation and counting of polystyrene particles of two and three different sizes with 1 μm resolution were demonstrated experimentally.

Insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) exploits the electric field gradients formed around insulating structures to manipulate particles for diverse microfluidic applications. Compared to the traditional electrode-based dielectrophoresis, iDEP microdevices have the advantages of easy fabrication, free of water electrolysis, and robust structure, etc. However, the presence of in-channel insulators may cause thermal effects because of the locally amplified Joule heating of the fluid. The resulting electrothermal flow circulations are exploited in this work to trap and concentrate nanoscale particles (of 100 nm diameter and less) in a ratchet-based iDEP microdevice. Such Joule heating-enabled electrothermal enrichment of nanoparticles are found to grow with the increase of alternating current or direct current electric field. It also becomes more effective for larger particles and in a microchannel with symmetric ratchets. Moreover, a depth-averaged numerical model is developed to understand and simulate the various parametric effects, which is found to predict the experimental observations with a good agreement.

Vortex formation near a two-part cylinder with zeta potentials of different values but the same sign under an external DC electric field is numerically investigated in this paper. The cylinder, inserted in a straight microchannel filled with an aqueous solution, is composed of an upstream part and a downstream part. When a DC electric field is applied in the channel, under certain conditions, the vortex will form near the cylinder due to the different velocities of electroosmotic flow generated on the cylinder surface. The numerical results reveal that the larger the velocity difference of electroosmotic flow generated on the two-part cylinder and the smaller the channel width, the more conducive to vortex formation in the channel. In addition, if the zeta potential ratios of cylinder downstream part to upstream part and channel wall to cylinder upstream part are unchanged, the DC electric field strength and the zeta potential value do not affect the pattern of vortices formed in the channel. This study provides a way for vortex formation in microchannels and has the potential application in microfluidic devices.

Separations of particles and cells are indispensable in many microfluidic systems and have numerous applications in chemistry and biomedicine. The interface of aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) can act as a liquid filter. Under electric field stimuli, the selective transfer of targets across the liquid-liquid interface are expected for particles and cells separation.The separations of particles and cells based on ATPS electrophoresis in a microfluidic chip were investigated. A systematical study of the mechanism of ATPS electrophoresis was performed first by employing polystyrene (PS) particles. Subsequently, the separations of particles and microalgae cells were demonstrated.The electrophoretic transfer of particles across the interface of ATPS is determined by multi-parameters, including the strength of electric pulse, particle size, zeta potential, and hydrophobicity of the particle. The continuous separations of particles/cells can be achieved through the controllable transfer of target particles/cells across the interface under electric pulses in a microfluidic chip. By simply turning the magnitude of the applied electric pulse, the technique is suitable for different purposes, for example, the separations of particles and cells, purification of cells, and viability identification of cells. This tunable separation approach opens opportunities in multidimensional particle and cell sorting for the fields of seed selection of microorganisms, environmental assessment, and biomedical research.

This work numerically investigated the translational velocity of a negatively charged oil droplet in the water near a negatively charged solid surface under a DC electric field. The equilibrium separation distance between the charged oil droplet and the charged solid surface is calculated under different parameters and the translational motion of the droplet near the solid surface is simulated via a three-dimensional mathematical model. The results indicate that the velocity of the droplet is higher under a larger zeta potential of the solid surface and a smaller zeta potential of the droplet. When the absolute value of the negative zeta potential of the droplet is larger than that of the solid surface, the droplet will move in opposite direction of the electric field. It is also found that the droplet translational velocity increases with the decrease of the separation distance between the oil droplet and the solid surface.

Detecting living algae from treated ship’s ballast water is an important task for port state control (PSC) under the requirement of the International Ballast Water Convention. In this paper, electrokinetic detection and separation of living algae from NaClO- and UV-treated ship’s ballast water in a microfluidic chip are presented. The electrokinetic movement of algae in a straight poly ethylene glycol (PEG)–modified PDMS microchannel filled with 10% PEG solution was measured by using an optical microscope. The experimental results show that the moving velocity of dead algae is lower by more than 80% in comparison with living algae. The decreased velocity is larger for larger dead algae and the velocity is decreased to zero for dead algae larger than 6 μm in diameter. A curve was obtained to evaluate the vitality of algae with similar moving velocity but different sizes. Electrokinetic separation of living algae from a mixture sample in a straight channel was also achieved. The method presented in this paper provides a moving velocity–based approach for quickly evaluating the living status of algae in treated ship’s ballast water.

This paper presents the detection of nanoparticles and microorganisms using a recently developed side-orifice-based resistive pulse sensor (SO-RPS). By decreasing the channel height of the detection section of the SO-RPS, the detection sensitivity was increased and an average signal to noise ratio (S/N) of about 3 was achieved for 100 nm polystyrene particles. It was also found that spherical particles generate symmetrical signals. Algae with irregular shapes generate signals with more complex patterns. A scatter plot of signal magnitude versus signal width was proven to be reliable for differentiating bacteria from the nanoparticles and two types of algae. The side orifice for detecting heterogeneous nanoparticles and microorganisms is advantageous to avoid orifice clogging and the large flow resistance.

Hypothesis The shape of the liquid film (SLF) between a glass slide and an oil droplet immersed in an aqueous solution is influenced by the direct current (DC) electric field. The liquid film, consisting of the central film region and the meniscus film region, is formed between a floating oil droplet and a glass slide overhead. Experiments The SLF was experimentally studied in aqueous solutions of different ionic concentrations and pH values. After the DC electric fields were applied along the glass slide in horizontal direction, the diameter of central film and the thickness of meniscus film were measured by the interference method with an optical microscope. Findings The diameter of the central film decreases with the increase in the applied electric fields and declines at higher pH values while increases when the ionic concentration increases. The meniscus film becomes thicker with the increase in applied electric fields and is thicker in pH = 11 solution and thinner in pH = 3 and 1 mM NaCl solution. This is the first study of dynamic thin liquid film under DC electric field, which may be attributed to the balance of dielectrophoretic (DEP) force, colloidal force and the deformable characteristic of the oil droplet.

Zeta potential of PDMS-liquid interface is an important parameter for generating electroosmotic flow in a PDMS microchannel. In this paper, the zeta potentials of a PDMS slab in contacting with electrolyte solutions were evaluated with an atomic force microscope (AFM). As a colloidal probe of the AFM approaches to the surface of a PDMS slab in an electrolyte solution, a force curve is obtained and used to calculate the zeta potential of the PDMS. The effects of the plasma treating time and the aging of the electrolyte solutions on the zeta potential of PDMS surfaces were examined. The experimental results show that the air plasma treating time does not change the zeta potential of PDMS appreciably. Furthermore, the decreased zeta potential of a plasma-treated PDMS in an electrolyte solution is due to liquid aging, not the PDMS itself. Such characteristics probed by AFM provide new understanding of the surface charges of PDMS in electrolyte solutions.

A numerical study on the electrokinetic motion of a charged oil droplet near a charged air–water interface is presented in this paper. First, the separation distance between the oil droplet and the air–water interface is calculated, and then the electrokinetic velocity of the droplet is simulated utilizing a three-dimensional numerical model under different applied electric fields, droplet’s radii, ionic concentrations, zeta potentials of the oil–water interface, and zeta potentials of the air–water interface. The numerical results indicate that a negatively charged oil droplet near a negatively charged air–water interface moves in opposite direction of the direct current electric field and has larger velocity under higher electric field strength, droplet’s radius, ionic concentration, and absolute values of the two interface zeta potentials.

Electrokinetic movement of spherical polystyrene particles at different liquid-fluid interfaces was experimentally investigated in this paper. A novel method was developed to place the particles rightly at the interfaces formed in a large plastic container. The velocity was measured by an optical microscope. The experimental results show that the particles (3, 5 and 10 μm in diameter) at the water-air interface, water-dodecane interface and NaCl solution-air interface move in the opposite direction of the applied electric field. The magnitude of the particles’ velocity increases linearly with the increase in the applied electric field. Moreover, for particles of the same size, the electrokinetic velocity at the liquid-fluid interfaces is larger than particles’ electrophoretic velocity in the bulk liquid phase. Under the same electric field, however, the electrokinetic velocity of smaller particles at the liquid-fluid interfaces is larger than that of larger particles. Such results are attributed to the surface charges at the liquid-fluid interface and the particle-liquid interface.

Enrichment of colloidal particles in continuous flow has not only numerous applications but also poses a great challenge in controlling physical forces that are required for achieving particle enrichment. Here, we for the first time experimentally demonstrate the electrokinetically-driven continuous-flow enrichment of colloidal particles with Joule heating induced temperature gradient focusing (TGF) in a microfluidic convergent-divergent structure. We consider four mechanisms of particle transport, i.e., advection due to electroosmosis, electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis and, and further clarify their roles in the particle enrichment. It is experimentally determined and numerically verified that the particle thermophoresis plays dominant roles in enrichment of all particle sizes considered in this study and the combined effect of electroosmosis-induced advection and electrophoresis is mainly to transport particles to the zone of enrichment. Specifically, the enrichment of particles is achieved with combined DC and AC voltages rather than a sole DC or AC voltage. A numerical model is formulated with consideration of the abovementioned four mechanisms, and the model can rationalize the experimental observations. Particularly, our analysis of numerical and experimental results indicates that thermophoresis which is usually an overlooked mechanism of material transport is crucial for the successful electrokinetic enrichment of particles with Joule heating induced TGF. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a non-destructive, accurate, and label-free cell manipulating technique and DEP applications have been found in various fields. Assessment of cell viability is one of the important applications and many investigations have been reported. In this paper, cell polarization and its modeling, some key parameters employed for living/dead cell separation, as well as electrode configurations are reviewed. Focus is given to the latest development of DEP devices employed for the assessment of cell viability. Experimentally determined factors for separating living/dead cells, such as the conductivity of suspending medium and the frequency of applied electric field, are summarized. The future directions and potential challenges in this field are also outlined.

Controlling zeta potential of PDMS surface coated with a layer of PEG is important for electroosmosis and electrophoresis in PDMS made microfluidic chips. Here, zeta potentials of PDMS surfaces modified by simple physisorption of PEG of different concentrations in phosphate buffer solutions, pure water, and PEG solution were reported. Coating PEG on PDMS surfaces was achieved by immersing a PDMS layer into the PEG solution for 10 min and then taking it out and placing it in an oven at 80℃ for 10 h. To avoid damaging the PEG layer on the PDMS surface, an induction current method was employed for zeta potential measurement. Zeta potentials of PEG modified PDMS in electrolyte solutions were measured. The results show that 2.5% PEG can effectively modify PDMS surface with positive zeta potential value in phosphate buffer solutions, pure water and 10% PEG solution. Further increase in PEG solution beyond 5% for surface modification has no obvious effect on zeta potential change.

A phenomenon that electric current is generated when a pendant water droplet touches an air-electrolyte solution interface is investigated in this paper. A measurement system developed in this study consists of a hollow electrode for droplet generation, a counter electrode immersed in an electrolyte solution, and an electrometer with high precision. Once a droplet touches the air-electrolyte solution interface, it will be pulled into the electrolyte solution and an electric current is produced during this process. Experiments showed that the magnitude of the electric current depends only on the pendant droplet and has nothing to do with the types of the electrolyte solution (with a much larger volume than that of the droplet) below the drop. The electric current is generated by the electric potential difference between the droplet and air-electrolyte solution interface and the liquid bridge formed during droplet coalescence. As a result, the magnitude of the generated electrical current mainly depends on the size, pH, and the type of the solution forming the droplet. Determining the critical micelle concentration using this system was successfully achieved to show the powerfulness of this system.

In this paper, a dynamic changing solid-liquid interfacial process was used for electrically detecting and counting underwater bubbles. The measurement system consists of a detection electrode, a reference electrode, an electric resistor connected in series with the two electrodes, a differential amplifier and a data acquisition system. Once a bubble touches the detection electrode submerged in a solution, the electrode-liquid interface is changed to the electrode-bubble interface. During this process, an electric pulse is generated and consequently be detected and counted by the measurement system. The generated electric signal is due to the dynamic change of the electric double layer (EDL) of the detection electrode. Experimental results show that the magnitude of the generated signals depends on bubble size, bubble rising height, exposed area of the detection electrode in solution and bubble-contacting position at the electrode. The magnitudes of the generated signals are larger in 3.5% NaCl solution than in pure water. Detection of air bubbles of 0.3 mm in diameter was achieved with a 3 mm × 3 mm detection electrode. The measurement system presented in this paper is simple and has a great potential on sensing and counting underwater bubbles, for applications such as underwater pipe leakage detection and bubble sensing in chemical engineering science.

A novel method for detecting and sizing airborne particles at single particle level is presented in this paper. When a particle hits a metal electrode which is grounded, electrostatic charges will be transferred between the particle and the electrode. As a result, an electrical current pulse will be generated in the measurement system. The number of the signal pulse represents the number of particles in the sample. To determine the effect of the particle size on the magnitude of the signal, the correlation between the magnitude of the signal and the size of particle was experimentally investigated. The results show that the magnitude of the measured signal is linearly proportional to the square of particle’s diameter. Such a correlation can be used to evaluate particle size from the measured signal. The airborne particle detection method presented in this paper can be used for counting and sizing airborne particles at single particle level.

The separation of particles and cells in a uniform mixture has been extensively studied as a necessity in many chemical and biomedical engineering and research fields. This work demonstrates a continuous charge-based separation of fluorescent and plain spherical polystyrene particles with comparable sizes in a ψ-shaped microchannel via the wall-induced electrical lift. The effects of both the direct current electric field in the main-branch and the electric field ratio in between the inlet branches for sheath fluid and particle mixture are investigated on this electrokinetic particle separation. A Lagrangian tracking method based theoretical model is also developed to understand the particle transport in the microchannel and simulate the parametric effects on particle separation. Moreover, the demonstrated charge-based separation is applied to a mixture of yeast cells and polystyrene particles with similar sizes. Good separation efficiency and purity are achieved for both the cells and the particles.

A novel method of sheathless particle focusing by induced charge electrokinetic flow in a microchannel is presented in this paper. By placing a pair of metal plates on the opposite walls of the channel and applying an electrical field, particle focusing is achieved due to the two pairs of vortex that constrain the flow of the particle solution. As an example, the trajectories of particles under different electrical fields with only one metal plate on one side channel wall were numerically simulated and experimentally validated. Other flow focusing effects, such as the focused width ratio (focused width/channel width) and length ratio (focused length/half-length of metal plate) of the sample solution, were also numerically studied. The results show that the particle firstly passes through the gaps between the upstream vortices and the channel walls. Afterwards, the particle is focused to pass through the gap between the two downstream vortices that determine the focused particle position. Numerical simulations show that the focused particle stream becomes thin with the increases in the applied electrical field and the length of the metal plates. As regards to the focused length ratio of the focused stream, however, it slightly increases with the increase in the applied electrical field and almost keeps constant with the increase in the length of the metal plate. The size of the focused sample solution, therefore, can be easily adjusted by controlling the applied electrical field and the sizes of the metal plates.

Electrospun nanofibrous mats have been widely used as substrate to develop novel membranes for forward osmosis (FO) application due to its ultralow structure parameter (S). However, their large pore sizes usually hinder the formation of satisfied active layer. In this work, a novel composite FO membrane was designed and prepared with a carbon nanotubes (CNTs) interlayer between the dense polyamide (PA) layer and electrospun porous polyacrylonitrile (PAN) support layer. The presence of CNT interlayer minified the pore size of the substrate to provide a better platform for PA layer growth which inhibited the diffusion of the draw solute, thus keeping a stable osmosis pressure gradient on both side of the thin-film composite (TFC) membrane. The results revealed that the optimized FO membrane with CNTs interlayer exhibited water flux of 83.55% higher and reverse salt flux of 75.58% lower than the unmodified membrane in the active layer facing draw solution (AL-DS) mode. Such better overall FO performance suggested that the addition of CNTs interlayer would offer a promising avenue to prepare high-performance electrospinning-based FO membrane for practical application.

As worldwide forest fire frequently causes a serious threat to forest resources and global climate change, novel early forest fire monitoring and detection technologies are urgently required to explore. Herein, a self-powered forest fire alarm system (FFAS) is proposed by coupling thermosensitive effect and triboelectric effect as an aim of effective forest fire monitoring and detecting. The FFAS is fabricated as a self-powered early forest fire monitoring and detection system by connecting a spherical free-standingmode triboelectric nanogenerator (S-TENG) as power source with polydopamine-modified graphene oxide (P-GO) as thermosensitive sensor and commercial LEDs as alarm. When encountering an open fire or abnormal high temperature the thermosensitive sensor based on P-GO can be in-situ thermally reduced, inducing an obvious transition in electrical resistance. Thus, the output voltage of S-TENG can be tuned by the impedance matching effect between special output characteristics of TENG and working status of thermosensitive sensor, and then can directly light up the LEDs as alarm. Furthermore, the FFAS achieves a low temperature response (160 °C), rapid response time (~3 s), and especially no external power supply. Consequently, the FFAS based on impedance matching effect between TENG and thermosensitive sensor would provide a real-time, rapidly responsive, and self-powered monitoring strategy for the early forest fire warning and detection.

Previous studies on electrokinetically generated vortices generally involve using relatively complicated heterogeneous surface charge patterns (with zeta potentials of different polarities). In this paper, vortex formation in a straight channel with zeta potentials of two different values, but the same polarity was investigated. Particularly, the effects of the length ratio of the polybrene (PB)-modified section to the unmodified section on vortex formation in electroosmotic flow in a straight polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannel were studied numerically and experimentally. The numerical results show that for the 5% PB-modified channel (with a zeta potential of about − 5 mV), a vortex will be formed when the length ratio of the modified section to the unmodified section was larger than 4. Such results were experimentally verified with tracing particles. The critical length ratio decreases with the decrease in the absolute value of the zeta potential of PB-modified section and increases with the increased channel width. The results presented in this paper are valuable for understanding vortex formation in a straight channel which is partially modified with PB.

Traditionally, a resistive pulse sensor (also known as Coulter counter) works by letting a particle pass through a small orifice in an electrolyte solution. The detection sensitivity mainly relies on the volume ratio of the particle to the orifice. This paper presents a novel resistive pulse sensor which has a sensing orifice located on the side wall of a microchannel. In this way, the sensor can detect and count particles (or cells) without requiring particles (or cells) passing through the sensing gate. An equation was derived to relate the magnitudes of the detected signals and the electrical resistances. Results show that the magnitudes of the detected signals can be increased by applying voltages from more than one voltage input channels simultaneously. Under the same conditions, the magnitudes of the detected signals become larger when the diameters of particles are larger. Higher detection sensitivity can be obtained simply by increasing either the magnitudes of the applied voltages or the number of the voltage input channels, or reducing the opening of the side sensing gate to a size that is even smaller than the diameter of the particle. Due to the high detection sensitivity, detection of 1 μm particles by a relatively large sensing gate of 5 × 10 × 10 μm (width × length × height) was successfully demonstrated with a signal to noise ratio (S/N) of approximately 3. This sensor was also applied to detect and count human red blood cells and lymphocyte cells. Results show that this method can clearly distinguish the cells with different sizes based on the pre-determined-thresholds. Because this sensor does not require cells to pass through the sensing gate, the channel clogging problem can be avoided. More importantly, the detection sensitivity can be tuned by applying different voltages without fabricating a smaller sensing gate.

Electrokinetic motion of a micro oil droplet beneath a glass slide was experimentally investigated in this paper. The micro oil droplets were released under the glass slide in an aqueous solution and the motion along the glass slide was measured by a microscope. The experimental results indicate that while the electrokinetic mobility increases with the applied electric field, it decreases with the oil droplet size and the ionic concentration of the aqueous solution, respectively. By changing the zeta potential of the glass-liquid interface using polybrene coating from negative to positive, the direction of the electrokinetic mobility is reversed and the absolute value of the electrokinetic mobility increases significantly. Finally, pH effects were also investigated, and it was found that the electrokinetic mobility of the droplets reaches a maximum at pH = 6∼8.

A novel microfluidic method of continually detecting and counting beads-labeled cells from a cell mixture without fluorescence labeling was presented in this paper. The detection system is composed of a microfluidic chip (with a permanent magnet inserted along the channel), a signal amplification circuit, and a LabView® based data acquisition device. The microfluidic chip can be functionally divided into separation zone and detection zone. By flowing the pre-labeled sample solution, the target cells will be sequentially separated at the separation zone by the permanent magnet and detected and counted at the detection zone by a microfluidic resistive pulse sensor. Experiments of positive separation and detection of T-lymphocytes and negative separation and detection of cancer cells from the whole blood samples were carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. The methodology of utilizing size difference between magnetic beads and cell-magnetic beads complex for beads-labeled cell detection is simple, automatic, and particularly suitable for beads-based immunoassay without using fluorescence labeling.

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.

Zeta potential is an important parameter for characterizing the electrokinetic properties of a solid-liquid interface. In this paper, zeta potentials of polydimethylsiloxane surfaces modified by polybrene (PB) solutions of different concentrations in Phosphate buffer solution and pure water were reported. The zeta potentials were measured by an induction current method. The measurements were validated both by a calibration curve based on the data reported in the published papers and by comparing the zeta potential determined by using the Smoluchowski equation and the measured velocity of the electrokinetic motion of particles in a microchannel.

The electrokinetic motion of a negatively charged oil droplet attached to the negatively charged water-air interface from below is numerically studied for the first time by a three-dimensional numerical model in this paper. The effects of the mobile water-air interface and the mobile water-oil interface on the electrokinetic motion of the attached oil droplet are investigated and discussed in terms of the zeta potentials at the water-air interface and the oil droplet surface, the applied electric field, the dynamic viscosity ratio of oil to water, and the droplet radius. The results show that the negatively charged oil droplet attached to the negatively charged water-air interface from below moves in the opposite direction to that of the external electric field, and its moving velocity increases with the increase of the electric field strength, the magnitudes of the zeta potentials at both the water-air interface and the water-oil interface, and the droplet size, as well as the dynamic viscosity ratio of oil to water.

The electrokinetic motion of a negatively charged spherical particle at an oil-water interface in a microchannel is numerically investigated and analyzed in this paper. A three-dimensional (3D) transient numerical model is developed to simulate the particle electrokinetic motion. The channel wall, the surface of the particle and the oil-water interface are all considered negatively charged. The effects of the direct current (DC) electric field, the zeta potentials of the particle-water interface and the oil-water interface, and the dynamic viscosity ratio of oil to water on the velocity of the particle are studied in this paper. In addition, the influences of the particle size are also discussed. The simulation results show that the micro-particle with a small value of negative zeta potential moves in the same direction of the external electric field. However, if the zeta potential value of the particle-water interface is large enough, the moving direction of the particle is opposite to that of the electric field. The velocity of the particle at the interface increases with the increase in the electric field strength and the particle size, but decreases with the increase in the dynamic viscosity ratio of oil to water, and the absolute value of the negative zeta potentials of both the particle-water interface and the oil-water interface. This work is the first numerical study of the electrokinetic motion of a charged particle at an oil-water interface in a microchannel.

A microfluidic lab-on-chip device was developed to automatically and selectively manipulate target cells at the single cell level. The device is composed of a microfluidic chip, mini solenoid valves with negative-pressurized soft tubes, and a LabView®-based data acquisition device. Once a target cell passes the resistive pulse sensing gate of the microfluidic chip, the solenoid valves are automatically actuated and open the negative-pressurized tubes placed at the ends of the collecting channels. As a result, the cell is transported to that collecting well. Numerical simulation shows that a 0.14 mm3 volume change of the soft tube can result in a 1.58 mm/s moving velocity of the sample solution. Experiments with single polystyrene particles and cancer cells samples were carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. Selectively manipulating a certain size of particles from a mixture solution was also achieved. Due to the very high pressure-driven flow switching, as many as 300 target cells per minute can be isolated from the sample solution and thus is particularly suitable for manipulating very rare target cells. The device is simple, automatic, and label-free and particularly suitable for isolating single cells off the chip one by one for downstream analysis.

The resistive pulse sensing (RPS) method based on the Coulter principle is a powerful method for particle counting and sizing in electrolyte solutions. With the advancement of micro- and nano-fabrication technologies, microfluidic and nanofluidic resistive pulse sensing technologies and devices have been developed. Due to the unique advantages of microfluidics and nanofluidics, RPS sensors are enabled with more functions with greatly improved sensitivity and throughput and thus have wide applications in fields of biomedical research, clinical diagnosis, and so on. Firstly, this paper reviews some basic theories of particle sizing and counting. Emphasis is then given to the latest development of microfuidic and nanofluidic RPS technologies within the last 6 years, ranging from some new phenomena, methods of improving the sensitivity and throughput, and their applications, to some popular nanopore or nanochannel fabrication techniques. The future research directions and challenges on microfluidic and nanofluidic RPS are also outlined.

A novel and simple method of improving the particle detection sensitivity of a microfluidic resistive pulse sensor was presented in this paper. This novel electrokinetic flow focusing method utilizes a focusing solution (with high resistivity) flowing from the upstream focusing channel to the downstream focusing channel. The focusing solution in the sensing gate works like a virtual insulation wall that greatly narrows the gate and thus improves the detection sensitivity. An equation was derived to relate the magnitude of the output signal to the resistivity and the width of the focusing solution. The width of the focused particle solution under different voltages was numerically predicted. The results show that the magnitude of output signal increases with the decrease in the width of the focused particle stream. More importantly, the detection sensitivity can be improved by decreasing the space occupied by the focusing solution in the upstream and downstream channels as much as possible. Detection of 1 μm particle with a sensing gate of 30 × 40 × 10 μm (width × length × height) was successfully achieved. The proposed method is simple and advantageous in detecting smaller particles without fabricating a small sensing gate.

Electroosmotic flow is the transport method of choice in microfluidic devices over traditional pressure-driven flow. To date, however, studies on electroosmotic flow have been almost entirely limited to inside microchannels. This work presents the first experimental study of Joule heating effects on electroosmotic fluid entry from the inlet reservoir (i.e., the well that supplies fluids and samples) to the microchannel in a polymer-based microfluidic chip. Electrothermal fluid circulations are observed at the reservoir-microchannel junction, which grow in size and strength with the increasing alternating current to direct current voltage ratio. Moreover, a 2D depth-averaged numerical model is developed to understand the effects of Joule heating on fluid temperature and flow fields in electrokinetic microfluidic chips. This model overcomes the problems encountered in previous unrealistic 2D and costly 3D models, and is able to predict the observed electroosmotic entry flow patterns with a good agreement.

An electric field has been extensively used to manipulate fluids and particles via electrokinetic flow in microchannels and nanochannels for various lab-on-a-chip applications. Recent studies have demonstrated the action of a dielectrophoretic-like lift force on near-wall particles in an electrokinetic flow due to the particles’ modifications of the field-line structure adjacent to a planar wall. This work presents a fundamental investigation of the lateral migration of dielectric particles in the electrokinetic flow of buffer solutions of varying molar concentrations through a straight rectangular microchannel. We find that the particle migration-induced electrokinetic centerline focusing is significantly enhanced with the decrease of the buffer concentration. This observed phenomenon may be attributed to the increased surface conduction effect in a lower-concentration buffer that yields a larger Dukhin number, Du. It seems qualitatively consistent with a recent theoretical study that predicts a greater ...

Electrokinetic flow, due to a nearly plug-like velocity profile, is the preferred mode for transport of fluids (by electroosmosis) and species (by electrophoresis if charged) in microfluidic devices. Thus far there have been numerous studies on electrokinetic flow within a variety of microchannel structures. However, the fluid and species behaviors at the interface of the inlet reservoir (i.e., the well that supplies the fluid and species) and microchannel are still largely unexplored. This work presents a fundamental investigation of the induced charge effects on electrokinetic entry flow due to the polarization of dielectric corners at the inlet reservoir-microchannel junction. We use small tracing particles suspended in a low ionic concentration fluid to visualize the electrokinetic flow pattern in the absence of Joule heating effects. Particles are found to get trapped and concentrated inside a pair of counter-rotating fluid circulations near the corners of the channel entrance. We also develop a depth-averaged numerical model to understand the induced charge on the corner surfaces and simulate the resultant induced charge electroosmosis (ICEO) in the horizontal plane of the microchannel. The particle streaklines predicted from this model are compared with the experimental images of tracing particles, which shows a significantly better agreement than those from a regular two-dimensional model. This study indicates the strong influences of the top/bottom walls on ICEO in shallow microchannels, which have been neglected in previous two-dimensional models. Published version

A novel method for measuring the zeta potential of PDMS-electrolyte solution interface is presented in this paper. When an electrolyte solution passes the electrode coated with PDMS film, an electrical current will be induced due to the electrostatic potential difference between the PDMS-air interface and the PDMS-electrolyte solution interface. Based on this principle, the relationship between the measured electrical signal and the zeta potential of PDMS-electrolyte solution interface is experimentally investigated. The results show that the magnitude of the measured signal is linearly proportional to this potential difference. An empirical correlation between the zeta potential and the measured voltage signal was obtained. Good agreement was found when comparing the zeta potential calculated by this empirical equation with that reported in the published journal papers. The zeta potential measurement method presented in this paper is simple and accurate and can be used for measuring zeta potentials of other dielectric-electrolyte interfaces.

In this paper, a novel microfluidic valve by utilizing induced charge electro-osmotic flow (ICEOF) is proposed and analyzed. The key part of the microfluidic valve is a Y-shaped microchannel. A small metal plate is placed at each corner of the junction of the Y-shaped microchannel. When a DC electrical field is applied through the channels, electro-osmotic flows occur in the channels, and two vortices will be formed near each of the metal plates due to the ICEOF. The two vortices behave like virtual 'blocking columns' to restrain and direct the flow in the Y-channel. In this paper, effects of the length of the metal plates, the applied voltages, the width of the microchannel, the zeta potential of the non-metal microchannel wall, and the orientation of the branch channels on the flow switching between two outlet channels are numerically investigated. The results show that the flow switching between the two outlet channels can be flexibly achieved by adjusting the applied DC voltages. The critical switching voltage (CSV), under which one outlet channel is closed, decreases with the increase in the metal plate length and the orientation angle of the outlet channels. The CSV, however, increases with the increase in the inlet voltage, the width of the microchannel, and the absolute value of the zeta potential of the non-metal microchannel wall. Compared with other types of micro-valves, the proposed micro-valve is simple in structure without any moving parts. Only a DC power source is needed for its actuation, thus it can operate automatically by controlling the applied voltages.

This paper reports a lab-on-a-chip device that counts the number of bacteria flowing through a microchannel. The bacteria number counting is realized by a microfluidic differential Resistive Pulse Sensor (RPS). By using a single microfluidic channel with two detecting arm channels placed at the two ends of the sensing section, the microfluidic differential RPS can achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio. This method is applied to detect and count bacteria in aqueous solution. The detected RPS signals amplitude for Pseudomonas aeruginosa ranges from 0.05 V to 0.17 V and the signal-to-noise ratio is 5-17. The number rate of the bacteria flowing through the sensing gate per minute is a linear function of the sample concentration. Using this experimentally obtained correlation curve, the concentration of bacteria in the sample solution can be evaluated within several minutes by measuring the number rate of the bacteria flowing through the sensing gate of this microfluidic differential RPS chip. The method described in this paper is simple and automatic, and have wide applications in determining the bacteria and cell concentrations for microbiological and other biological applications.