Separation of blood in microchannel bends

Most clinical chemistry tests are performed on cell-free serum or plasma. Therefore micro assay devices for blood tests require integrated on-chip microfluidics for separation of plasma or serum from blood. This is achieved by a new blood separation technique based on a microchannel bend structure developed within the collaborative microtele-biochip (/spl mu/TBC) project co-funded by the German Ministry for education and research (BMBF). Different prototype polymer chips have been manufactured with an UV-LIGA process and hot embossing technology. The separation efficiency of these chips has been determined with samples of human whole blood as well as diluted blood samples. The results show different separation efficiencies up to 90% for blood cells and plasma depending on microchannel geometry as well as cell concentration. As compared to present microfluidic devices for the separation of blood cells like filters or filtration by diffusion the microchannel bend is an integrated on-chip blood separation method, which combines the advantages of rapid separation times and a simple geometry.

[1]  K. Svanes,et al.  Variations in small blood vessel hematocrits produced in hypothermic rats by micro-occlusion , 1968 .

[2]  Y. Fung,et al.  Effect of velocity of distribution on red cell distribution in capillary blood vessels. , 1978, The American journal of physiology.

[3]  Y Nosé,et al.  Available removal systems: state of the art. , 1990, Current studies in hematology and blood transfusion.

[4]  Joseph D. Bronzino,et al.  The Biomedical Engineering Handbook , 1995 .

[5]  W. Olbricht,et al.  Effects of particle concentration on the partitioning of suspensions at small divergent bifurcations. , 1996, Journal of biomechanical engineering.

[6]  D. Liepsch,et al.  Biofluid mechanics. , 1998, Biomedizinische Technik. Biomedical engineering.

[7]  F. Regnier,et al.  Microfabricated filters for microfluidic analytical systems. , 1999, Analytical chemistry.

[8]  P. Yager,et al.  Microfluidic Diffusion-Based Separation and Detection , 1999, Science.

[9]  Peter M. Martin,et al.  Laminated plastic microfluidic components for biological and chemical systems , 1999 .

[10]  M. Schmidt,et al.  Microfabrication in biology and medicine. , 1999, Annual review of biomedical engineering.

[11]  P. Wilding,et al.  Microchip module for blood sample preparation and nucleic acid amplification reactions. , 2001, Genome research.

[12]  Marc Madou,et al.  Design and Fabrication of CD-like Microfluidic Platforms for Diagnostics: Microfluidic Functions , 2001 .

[13]  A. D. Mello.  Focus: Plastic fantastic? , 2002 .

[14]  N. Nguyen,et al.  Fundamentals and Applications of Microfluidics , 2002 .

[15]  Andreas Schoth,et al.  Separation of blood in microchannel bends , 2003, The 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[16]  A. Heuberger,et al.  Production of separation-nozzle systems for uranium enrichment by a combination of X-ray lithography and galvanoplastics , 1982, Naturwissenschaften.