A cylindrical microfluidic centrifuge for high-efficient blood separation

Abstract In this paper, a new type of microfluidic centrifuge for plasma separation was presented. The main body of the centrifuge is cylindrical, consisting of a sample chamber and two automatic pressure-opening structures, with microchannels spiraling upward along the cylinder. Firstly, Comsol software was adapted to determine the microchannel parameter. The results showed that the centrifugal efficiency (CE) was proportional to the cylinder diameter, the loop number and the rotational speed. Therefore, 2 loops and 30 mm diameter were selected as the structural parameters. Then, polystyrene microspheres were employed to study the centrifuge performance. The experimental results showed that the centrifuge could effectively separate the particles in the suspension, and the centrifuge CE was inversely proportional to the initial concentration and proportional to the outlet ratio. Then, the ability of the centrifuge to separate plasma had been verified by experiments, and when the blood volume was diluted to three times, the CE was 97.4% with the 1:1 outlet ratio. Finally, the centrifuge was compared with other blood centrifuges. It can be seen that the cylindrical centrifuge has the advantages of low cost, simple operation, high separation efficiency, wide sample volume range and high separation rate.