Dijkshoorn JP, Schutyser MAI, Sebris M, Boom RM, Wagterveld RM. Reducing the critical particle diameter in (highly) asymmetric sieve-based lateral displacement devices.
Sci Rep 2017;
7:14162. [PMID:
29074981 PMCID:
PMC5658425 DOI:
10.1038/s41598-017-14391-z]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2017] [Accepted: 10/09/2017] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Deterministic lateral displacement technology was originally developed in the realm of microfluidics, but has potential for larger scale separation as well. In our previous studies, we proposed a sieve-based lateral displacement device inspired on the principle of deterministic lateral displacement. The advantages of this new device is that it gives a lower pressure drop, lower risk of particle accumulation, higher throughput and is simpler to manufacture. However, until now this device has only been investigated for its separation of large particles of around 785 µm diameter. To separate smaller particles, we investigate several design parameters for their influence on the critical particle diameter. In a dimensionless evaluation, device designs with different geometry and dimensions were compared. It was found that sieve-based lateral displacement devices are able to displace particles due to the crucial role of the flow profile, despite of their unusual and asymmetric design. These results demonstrate the possibility to actively steer the velocity profile in order to reduce the critical diameter in deterministic lateral displacement devices, which makes this separation principle more accessible for large-scale, high throughput applications.
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