Hydrodynamic Entrance Length for Laminar Flow in Microchannels with Rectangular Cross Section

Rapid, label-free enrichment of lymphocytes in a closed system using a flow-through microfluidic device

The majority of adoptive cellular therapies are produced from peripheral mononuclear cells obtained via leukapheresis and further enriched for the cells of interest (e.g., T cells). Here, we present a first-of-its-kind closed system, which effectively removes ~85% of monocytes and ~88% of platelets, while recovering ~88% of concentrated T cells in a separate output stream, as the leukapheresis sample flows through a microfluidic device at 5 mL/min. The system is driven by a common peristaltic pump, enabled by a novel pressure wave dampener, and operates in a closed bag-to-bag configuration, without requiring any specialized, dedicated equipment. When compared to standard density gradient centrifugation on paired samples, the new system demonstrated a 1.5-fold increase in T cell recovery and a 2-fold reduction in inter-sample variability for this separation outcome. The T cell-to-monocyte ratio of the leukapheresis sample was increased to 20:1, whereas with density gradient processing it decreased to 2:1. As a result of superior purity and/or gentler processing, T cells enriched by the system showed a 2.7-times higher fold expansion during subsequent culture, and an overall 3.5-times higher cumulative yield. This centrifugation-free and label-free closed system for enriching lymphocytes could significantly simplify and standardize the manufacturing of life-saving cellular therapies.

Synchronous oscillatory electro-inertial focusing of microparticles

Here, results are presented on the focusing of 1 μ m polystyrene particle suspensions using a synchronous oscillatory pressure-driven flow and oscillatory electric field in a microfluidic device. The effect of the phase difference between the oscillatory fields on the focusing position and focusing efficiency was investigated. The focusing position of negatively charged polystyrene particles could be tuned anywhere between the channel centerline to the channel walls. Similarly, the focusing efficiency could range from 20% up to 90%, depending on the phase difference, for particle Reynolds numbers of order O ( 10 - 4 ) . The migration velocity profile was measured and the peak velocity was found to scale linearly with both the oscillatory pressure-driven flow amplitude and the oscillatory electric field amplitude. Furthermore, the average migration velocity was observed to scale with the cosine of the phase difference between the fields, indicating the coupled non-linear nature of the phenomenon. Last, the peak migration velocity was measured for different particle radii and found to have an inverse relation, where the velocity increased with decreasing particle radius for identical conditions.

Influence of Thermal Boundary Conditions and Number of Channels on the Performance of Heat Sinks with Rectangular Minichannels

This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of a heat sink designed for the active cooling of small flat surfaces. The heat transfer device investigated here consists of a flat square substrate and a cover, separated by parallel channels with a rectangular cross-section. The cold air flowing in the channels is sucked from the environment, and the bottom of the substrate adheres closely to the hot surface of the device to be cooled. The thermal problem is tackled by considering two different conditions: the first one assuming one long side of the channel is heated and the three other sides are adiabatic (version 1L) and the second one assuming high conductivity of the walls (version 4), in both the H1 and H2 boundary conditions. Moreover, to investigate the effect of the number of channels on the performance of the heat sink, the number of channels is changed between 1 and 20. The results, presented in terms of the f Re product, Nusselt number, maximum surface temperature, and thermal resistance, reveal that both the thermal boundary conditions and the number of channels significantly affect the performance of the investigated heat transfer device.