Numerical simulation and channel configuration design for a negative dielectrophoresis based high efficiency cell sorting platform

Abstract

In this work, a channel configuration for a negative dielectrophoresis and gravity driven flow based high efficiency cell sorting system is proposed, and each channel in the sorting platform is dimensioned based on a theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. The detailed numerical simulation is carried out by taking into account the channel geometry, flow rate, dielectric material properties of the buffer solution and leukemia cell, and electric field. In order to apply the electric field as an input condition for the simulation, an electrode array is dimensioned. With double separation modules that are obtained from the simulation result, we confirmed that separation efficiency could be ideally improved by up to 100% with a voltage condition of 7 Vp-p, 100 kHz and optimized-flow conditions of 20 mu l/min and 10 mu l/min in outlet A and outlet B. A leukemia cell (K562) is employed as the target cell.