A new sorting scheme based on ferrofluid hydrodynamics (ferrohydrodynamics) was used to separate mixtures of particles and live cells simultaneously. Two species of cells, including Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as well as fluorescent polystyrene microparticles were studied for their sorting throughput and efficiency. Ferrofluids are stable magnetic nanoparticles suspensions. Under external magnetic fields, magnetic buoyancy forces exerted on particles and cells lead to size-dependent deflections from their laminar flow paths and result in spatial separation. We report the design, modeling, fabrication and characterization of the sorting device. This scheme is simple, low-cost and label-free compared to other existing techniques.

中文翻译：

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微流体装置中颗粒和细胞的连续流铁流体动力学分选。


基于铁磁流体动力学（铁流体动力学）的新分选方案用于同时分离颗粒和活细胞的混合物。研究了两种细胞（包括大肠杆菌和酿酒酵母）以及荧光聚苯乙烯微粒的分选通量和效率。铁磁流体是稳定的磁性纳米颗粒悬浮液。在外部磁场下，施加在颗粒和细胞上的磁浮力导致其层流路径发生尺寸依赖性偏转，并导致空间分离。我们报告了分选设备的设计、建模、制造和表征。与其他现有技术相比，该方案简单、成本低且无需标记。