Particle manipulation by hydrodynamic effects in vortical Stokes flow

TL;DR

This paper explores how hydrodynamic effects in vortical Stokes flow can be used to manipulate particles in microfluidic devices, revealing conditions for controlled displacement and potential applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates that flow symmetry breaking in Stokes flow enables precise particle manipulation without inertia or external forces.

Findings

Flow symmetry breaking is essential for particle displacement.

Particles can be driven to fixed points, cycles, or boundaries.

Controlled manipulation is possible even without boundaries for dumbbells.

Abstract

The main motivation of this work is the quantitative prediction and description of particle manipulation (displacement across streamlines) in microfluidic flow. Much attention has been paid recently to placing particles in fast oscillatory flow fields, usually driven by microbubbles actuated by low-frequency ultrasound, where particle inertia leads to deterministic displacements. However, such devices invariably set up simultaneous streaming flows that are interpretable as driven Stokes flows. The potential role of these flows in not just passively transporting but likewise manipulating the particles has not been appreciated. Therefore, we investigate whether a Stokes flow by itself can meaningfully affect the displacement of a single particle or a rigid dumbbell, given the properties and symmetries of the flow. To manipulate a single particle, its hydrodynamic interaction with a nearby boundary is crucial for obtaining non-trivial results. To irreversibly displace a particle using this effect, we find that the flow symmetry must be broken in specified ways. Controlling the flow geometry, one can drive particles to fixed points, cycles, or towards boundaries, with the possibility of controlling eventual attachment (sticking) of the particle. For rigid dumbbell particles, we show that such controlled displacement in Stokes flow is possible even without the presence of nearby boundaries, but again with requirements on the broken symmetry of the chosen flow. In practical microfluidic devices, these effects could be set up in manifold ways, by themselves or in combination with inertial forces for more versatile particle manipulation.