Dynamics of blood cells during a routine laboratory examination

TL;DR

This paper analytically studies how centrifugation time, speed, and temperature affect blood cell separation efficiency, using Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations to model cell dynamics during laboratory procedures.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical framework to understand blood cell separation dynamics during centrifugation, highlighting the effects of temperature and centrifuge speed.

Findings

Higher centrifuge speed enhances cell separation efficiency.

Increased temperature reduces cell velocity and displacement.

Temperature control is crucial for sample stability during centrifugation.

Abstract

Centrifugation is a commonly performed laboratory procedure that helps to separate blood cells such as $RBCs$, $WBCs$, and platelets from plasma or serum. Although centrifugation is a routine procedure in most medical laboratories, the factors that affect the efficacy of the centrifugation process have never been studied analytically. In this paper, we examine the effect of the centrifugation time on the efficacy of the centrifugation process by studying the dynamics of the blood cells via the well-known Langevin equation or equivalently, by solving the Fokker-Plank equation. Our result depicts that the speed of the centrifuge is one of the determinant factors concerning the efficacy of the centrifugation process. As the angular speed increases, the centrifugal force steps up and as result, the particles are forced to separate from the plasma or serum. The room temperature also considerably affects the dynamics of analyse during centrifugation. Most importantly, the generation of heat during centrifugation steps up the temperature within a centrifuge and as a result, not only the stability of the sample but also mobility of analyse is affected. We show that as the centrifuge temperature steps up, the velocity of the cells as well as the displacement of the cell in the fluid decreases. We then study the dynamics of the whole blood during capillary action where in this case the blood flows upward in a narrow space without the assistance of external forces. Previous investigations show that the height that the fluid rises increases as the surface tension steps up.