Inertio- and Elasto-Magnetic Fractionation of Multiple Microparticles in Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Fluid

Sorting of microparticles and cells using microfluidic platforms has several applications in diagnosis, biotechnology, and medicine. However, the currently available microfluidic sorting techniques have one or more of the following drawbacks such as low throughput, need for diluting sheath flows for operating devices, inability to sort multiple particles simultaneously, low purity and requirement of complicated fabrication methods. In this thesis, a hybrid scheme for sheath-less fractionation of microparticles has been devised by integrating magnetophoresis, inertial focusing and elastic focusing approaches with the concept of pinched flow fractionation. We have taken advantage of inertia, magnetic, drag, and elastic forces to achieve high throughput multiplexed microparticle fractionation. The technique has been tested with respect to parameters such as size of particles, flow rate, device geometry and fluid viscosity (Newtonian vs. non-Newtonian). This sorting method offers a tool to handle heterogeneous samples and can be used for affinity-based immune-magnetic separation of biological substances.