Research Advances in Magnetophoretic Separation: Fundamentals and Methodologies

Magnetophoretic separation has gained prominence in recent years for the separation of micro- and nanoparticles using magnetic principles. This technique has wide applications in analysis and purification, biochemical analysis, and environmental engineering. This review focuses on analyzing the main factors affecting the magnetophoretic velocity of particles. Considering the type of magnetic field source and motion state of the magnetic field, magnetophoretic separations can be categorized into static and dynamic magnetophoretic separations. Static magnetophoretic separation uses a time-invariant magnetic field for particle separation, whereas dynamic magnetophoretic separation uses a periodically varying magnetic field. This review discusses the methods and characteristics of both static and dynamic magnetophoretic separations, and highlights the superior separation performance of dynamic magnetophoretic separation compared to that of static magnetophoretic separation. This review concludes with a summary of magnetophoretic separations and provides prospects for future developments.