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A portable separator has been developed to quantitatively separate blood-borne magnetic spheres in potentially high-flow regimes for the human detoxification purpose. In the separator design, an array of biocompatible capillary tubing and magnetizable wires is immersed in an external magnetic field that is generated by two permanent magnets. The wires are magnetized and the high magnetic field gradient from the magnetized wires helps to collect blood-borne magnetic nano/micro-spheres from the blood flow. In this study, a 3D numerical model was created and the effect of tubing-wire configurations on the capture efficiency of the system was analyzed using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.3 R . The results showed that the configuration characterized by bi-directionally alternating wires and tubes was the best design with respect to the four starting configurations. Preliminary in vitro experiments verified the numerical predictions. The results helped us to optimize a prototype portable magnetic separator that is suitable for rapid sequestration of magnetic nano/microspheres from the human blood stream while accommodating necessary clinical boundary conditions.

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Cylindrical pipes are widely used in industries such as nuclear power plants and micro total analysis systems (mTAS). Measuring the flow rate of fluid in such pipes is critical. Ultrasonic flowmeters are noncontact, nondestructive, and easy-to-use devices, and are therefore widely used. However, typical bulk-wave-based ultrasonic flowmeters cannot be used for pipes narrower than the wavelength of bulk waves. For such pipes, we are currently developing a ''guide wave flowmeter'' that uses guide waves instead of bulk waves. Previously, we theoretically and experimentally investigated a pipe filled with quiescent fluid for all modes [Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 45 (2006) 4573]. In this study, we expanded our theoretical investigation to a cylindrical pipe containing flowing fluid, and then compared the results with experimental results. Both the theoretical and experimental results revealed that the flow rate can be determined by measuring the sound velocity (propagation time) of guide waves. This is the operating principle of our guide wave flowmeter.

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