High throughput separation of blood cells by using hydrodynamics and magnetophoresis

Blood separation performs an important role in medical diagnosis and medicine research. A micro-scale analysis system for blood allows immediate diagnosis, regardless of time or location. Rapid handling of target cells is required for accurate analysis because blood cells are easily altered during cell separation. In previous papers, the reported sample solution flow rates for cell sorting were on the order of tens of micro-liters per minute. The proposed blood cell sorting method is a combination of magnetophoresis using the magnetic properties of blood cells and hydrodynamics using the momentum of particles. The proposed blood cell sorter enables label-free cell separation with high throughput (0.1 ml/min), and adjustable a classification efficiency by varying magnetic field.