Dielectrophoretic separation of biological samples in a 3D filtering chip

A field-flow dielectrophoretic separation method in a 3D filtering chip has been developed in this work. The separation method was possible due to the special configuration of the DEP filtering chip, which has a structure similar to a classical capacitor with two parallel plate electrodes (realized by using a stainless steel mesh) and a dielectric medium (defined by a suspension of 100 mu m diameter silica beads in buffer solution). The dielectrophoretic phenomenon is generated by the non- uniformities of the dielectric media, which produce a gradient of the electric field and, as a consequence, a DEP force. If a suspension medium with cells flows through the filter, the DEP force can trap these cells around the contact points between the silica beads (if the cells exhibit positive DEP) or they are repelled into the space between the beads (if the cells exhibit negative DEP). It is shown that for two different cell populations, the frequency of the electric field and permittivity of the media can be tuned in such a way that one population will exhibit positive DEP and the other one negative DEP. The population that expresses negative DEP can be easily flushed out due to the hydrodynamic force which is larger at the center point between the beads. In such a way two cell populations can be separated. The working principle was verified with both live and dead yeast cells. Best results for the separation of viable and nonviable cell populations were achieved at an applied voltage of 150 V in a frequency range between 10 kHz and 20 kHz for flow rates of 0.1 ml min(-1) and 0.2 ml min(-1). With a few of these devices cascaded in series, higher efficiency could be achieved. As a result, this device and the associated proposed separation method can be very useful tools for bio-pharmaceutical industries since continuous flow separation at relatively high flow rates is both time and cost saving.