Design and analysis of a microfluidic lab-on-chip utilizing dielectrophoresis mechanism for medical diagnosis and liquid biopsy

In the recent years, microfluidic lab-on-chip devices have become very popular in point-of-care medical diagnosis and liquid biopsy analyses. However, the developed devices are only for isolation of cells or extraction of plasma. In order to provide reliable solution for complete medical analysis and liquid biopsy, by means of separating distinct blood cells and plasma, we have developed a microfluidic lab-on-chip device utilizing negative dielectrophoresis (DEP) mechanism. In this work, the design of the lab-on-chip has been analyzed using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4 simulation tool. To achieve efficient separation performance, triangular micro-tip electrodes have been used which are capable of generating higher electric field strength resulting in higher negative dielectrophoretic force than the normal electrodes. The chip has been tested with two types of whole blood (type 1 containing platelets, red blood cells and white blood cells and type 2 containing platelets, red blood cells and myeloid leukemia cells) which has been diluted inside the chip, thereby eliminating any necessity of external sample preparation. The device has achieved efficient and higher separation performance in terms of cell separation purity, cell separation efficiency and plasma separation purity. Also, curved microchannel-based geometry of the chip has been able to provide higher plasma recovery than the normal flat microchannel. This can be the solution in case of lower throughput DEP platforms.