Numerical simulation on performance improvement for blood cell separation under sheath-assisted dielectrophoresis

Abstract Dielectrophoresis (DEP), known as an attractive and frugal technique, can be used to manipulate biological or non-biological particles in microfluidics. This paper presents a three-dimensional sheath-assisted microfluidic chip for focusing cells and separating red blood cells (RBCs) from white blood cells (WBCs) in continuous flow. Based on the control variables, a simulation model using COMSOL Multiphysics 6.0 is calculated to obtain the favorable flow rate ratio under an electric potential as low as 14 Vpp, at the frequency of 175 kHz. Both RBCs and WBCs respond to negative dielectrophoresis forces and the performance of the separation process are analyzed by evaluating the purity and separation efficiency. The results reveal that the optimal flow rate ratio of the device is suitable to effectively separate RBCS from WBCs with high purity and cell separation efficiency factors up to 88% and 97%, at the throughput of 8 µL/h. The current research provides valuable insights into the design of microchip devices for the effective and selective separation regarding different cells in biological applications.