Tunable membrane-less dielectrophoretic microseparation by crossing interdigitated electrodes

Abstract Separation is a crucial step in the analysis of living microparticles. In particular, the selective microseparation of phytoplankton by size and shape remains an open problem, even though these criteria are essential for their gender and/or species identification. However, microseparation devices necessitate physical membranes which complicate their fabrication, reduce the sample flow rate and can cause unwanted particle clogging. Recent advances in microfabrication such as High Precision Capillary Printing allow to rapidly build electrode patterns over wide areas. In this study, we introduce a new concept of membrane-less dielectrophoretic (DEP) microseparation suitable for large scale microfabrication processes. The proposed design involves two pairs of interdigitated electrodes at the top and the bottom of a microfluidic channel. We use finite-element calculations to analyse how the DEP force field throughout the channel, as well as the resulting trajectories of particles depend on the geometry of the system, on the physical properties of the particles and suspending medium and on the imposed voltage and flow rates. We numerically show that in the negative DEP regime, particles are focused in the channel mid-planes and that virtual pillars array leads either to their trapping at specific stagnation points, or to their focusing along specific lines, depending on their DEP mobility. Simulations allow to understand how particles can be captured and to quantify the particle separation conditions by introducing a critical DEP mobility. We further illustrate the principle of membrane-less DEP microseparation using the proposed setup, by considering the separation of a binary mixture of polystyrene particles with different diameters, and validate it experimentally.