Partition-Induced Vector Chromatography in Microfluidic Devices

TL;DR

This paper develops a macrotransport theory for particle transport in microfluidic devices with periodic energy landscapes, enabling vector chromatography for particle separation based on physical properties.

Contribution

It introduces analytical expressions for particle migration angles under complex energy landscapes, demonstrating the potential for partition-induced vector chromatography in microfluidic systems.

Findings

Migration angle depends on particle properties and differs from driving field orientation.

Microfluidic devices can separate particles by size and type using patterned energy landscapes.

Partitioning can be achieved via gravity or Van der Waals interactions in fabricated channels.

Abstract

The transport of Brownian particles in a slit geometry in the presence of an arbitrary two-dimensional periodic energy landscape and driven by an external force or convected by a flow field is investigated by means of macrotransport theory. Analytical expressions for the probability distribution and the average migration angle of the particles are obtained under the Fick-Jackobs approximation. The migration angle is shown to differ from the orientation angle of the driving field and to strongly depend on the physical properties of the suspended species, thus providing the basis for vector chormatography, in which different species move in different directions and can be continuously fractionated. The potential of microfluidic devices as a platform for partition-induced vector chromatography is demonstrated by considering the particular case of a piece-wise constant, periodic potential that, in equilibrium, induces the spontaneous partition of different species into high and low concentration stripes, and which can be easily fabricated by patterning physically or chemically one of the surfaces of a channel. The feasibility to separate different particles of the same and different size is shown for systems in which partition is induced via 1g-gravity and Van der Waals interactions in physically and chemically patterned channels, respectively.