Micro-Channel Thermal Field-Flow Fractionation: New Challenge in Analysis of Macromolecules and Particles

Trends in Polymer and Particle Characterization by Microfluidic Field-Flow Fractionation Methods: Science or Business?

“…It has previously been concluded [8,19] on the basis of a simple calculus that if an acceptable experimental error in the measurement of the eluting zone broadness lies within 1 to 2%, r ex can be as high as 14 to 20% of r c . The experimental evaluation of the contribution of r ex to r T can be carried out by the measurement of the eluting zone broadness of a non-retained low molar mass marker on the whole separation system and then on the system without the separation channel.…”

“…[8,16,17,22,25,27,28] Polymer latex particles were successfully separated in the nanometer size range up to several micrometers, as well as biological cells. [8,16,17,22,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] In …”

“…Thus, under extreme experimental conditions it should be approximately 14 kW (!). This substantial drawback is fully eliminated in microthermal FFF, [8,16,17] (see Figure 1) for which maximum heating power is less than 100 W, and, consequently, a circulating cooling thermostat with the cooling power of 300 W can comfortably be used to cool the cold wall. Such an experimental setup thus allows perfect control of the temperatures of the hot and cold walls.…”

“…The details concerning the retention and efficiency in FFF can be found in several sources. [2,[15][16][17] Equation (1) was modified [8] to obtain:…”

“…The resulting microfluidic systems have been intensively developed and progressively applied for the fractionation and characterization of polymers, nanoparticles, and micrometer-sized particles. Microfluidic FFF devices devoted to the separation of polymers and particles were originally proposed and described for microthermal FFF, [8] asymmetrical flow FFF, [9,10] and electrical FFF. [11] Many articles on this topic have been published since 1966, most of them representing progress in FFF methodology and instrumentation.…”