Recent progress of particle migration in viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

Recently, research on particle migration in non-Newtonian viscoelastic fluids has gained considerable attention. In a viscoelastic fluid, three dimensional (3D) particle focusing can be easily realized in simple channels without the need for any external force fields or complex microchannel structures compared with that in a Newtonian fluid. Due to its promising properties for particle precise focusing and manipulation, this field has been developed rapidly, and research on the field has been shifted from fundamentals to applications. This review will elaborate the recent progress of particle migration in viscoelastic fluids, especially on the aspect of applications. The hydrodynamic forces on the micro/nano particles in viscoelastic fluids are discussed. Next, we elaborate the basic particle migration in viscoelasticity-dominant fluids and elasto-inertial fluids in straight channels. After that, a comprehensive review on the applications of viscoelasticity-induced particle migration (particle separation, cell deformability measurement and alignment, particle solution exchange, rheometry-on-a-chip and others) is presented; finally, we thrash out some perspectives on the future directions of particle migration in viscoelastic fluids.

Recent advances in direct current electrokinetic manipulation of particles for microfluidic applications

“…There are a few other research directions in the field that the author considers worthy of future intensive studies and are each explained below: Current studies on electrokinetic transport and manipulation of particles in microchannels have been focused mainly upon Newtonian fluids despite the fact that many of the chemical and biological fluids in microfluidic applications possess non‐Newtonian characteristics . There has been a growing interest in the understanding of fluid rheological effects (e.g., elasticity and shear thinning) on particle motion in both DC electroosmotic and pressure‐driven flows of non‐Newtonian fluids in microchannels. However, the majority of the studies on electrokinetic particle motion are purely theoretical , and experimental investigations are desperately lacking.…”

Manipulation of micro‐ and nanoparticles in viscoelastic fluid flows within microfluid systems

“…Scientists have also explored different features of VEF flows for bioengineering applications using microfluidics devices. Various lab‐on‐chip microfluidic platforms have been developed for particle manipulation in VEF electroosmotic flow (EOF) within microchannels (Afonso, Alves, & Pinho, ; Ferrás, Cavadas, Resende, Afonso, & Pinho, ; Sadeghi, Saidi, & Mozafari, ) for micromixing of liquids as well as washing, stretching, sorting, focusing, and separation of particles of interest (D'Avino, Greco, & Maffettone, ; Gan, Lam, Nguyen, Tam, & Yang, ; Lu, Liu, Hu, & Xuan, ; Ramsay, Simmons, Ingram, & Stitt, ; Yuan et al ).…”

“…Particle manipulation techniques within VEFs are categorized into passive and active methods. In passive methods, no external force is utilized other than hydrodynamic forces, including lift and drag forces (D'Avino et al ; Lu et al, ; Yuan et al, ). However, in the active techniques, external force fields, for example, magnetic (Del Giudice et al, ), acoustic (Kiyasatfar & Nama, ), or electric (Koh, ) are used to exert a controlled force on particles (e.g., magnetophoretic (Del Giudice et al, ), acoustophoretic (Kiyasatfar & Nama, ), or dielectrophoretic (Koh, ) forces).…”

“…Particle manipulation techniques within VEFs are categorized into passive and active methods. In passive methods, no external force is utilized other than hydrodynamic forces, including lift and drag forces Lu et al, 2017;Yuan et al, 2018).…”

Dynamics of particle migration in confined viscoelastic Poiseuille flows

“…Finally, inertia-viscoelastic migration has also been investigated [20,21]. As these various features fall out of the scope of the present article, we rather refer to four recent reviews [22][23][24][25], which bring together a nice global overview of the subject.…”