(162aq) Sized-Based Separation of Nanoparticles Using Elasto-Inertial Flow

High throughput and efficient separation and isolation of nanoparticles is of utmost importance in biotechnology and several other fields. Using microfluidics platforms for size-based separation of particle has recently come to the fore due to its simplicity and robustness. However, the application of such platforms for separation of nanoparticles is still in its infancy. A proper design of such platform critically depends on the capability of predicting particle trajectories based the complex interactions among the suspended particles and the carrier fluid. By using a viscoelastic fluid and operating in an inertial flow regime, different lateral forces are exerted on the suspended particles. An attempt is made to precisely tune the arising forces towards reaching the highest possible throughput and separation efficiency. To this end, a computational fluid dynamics approach based on finite volume method is employed. The viscoelasticity is taken into account by adopting Oldroyd-B model. Moreover, a Lagrangian approach is used to predict the particle trajectories. The influence of several factors such as channel geometry and flow rate on the separation efficiency is investigated.