Table 1 Summary of microfluidic platforms for DLD micro-particle separation
Post shape | Throughput/flow rate/Reynolds number | Sample type | Efficiency/recovery/remarks | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Circular posts | Average fluid velocity (UAve) ~ 400 μm s−1 | Separation from a mixture of 0.80, 0.90, and 1.03 μm beads/focusing and sorting of two bacterial artificial chromosome DNAs with 61 and 158 kb in size | Resolution of ~ 10 nm | [7] |
Triangular posts | Flow rate (Q) up to 10 mL min−1 | Separation of 15–30 μm large circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood | Recovery rate of 85% | [13] |
Circular posts | Maximum throughput 10 mL min−1 with 5 parallel channels | Separation of cancer cells (MCF-7, KYSE150, MDAMB231, A549, and HEPG2) | The efficiency of sorting at a speed of 2 mL min−1 is higher than 80% | [14] |
Mirrored triangular micropost array | Throughput of 9.6 mL min−1 | CTCs isolation (MCF-7) from spiked blood samples | 90% capture and more than 50% capture purity at cell concentration 102 cells mL−1 | [15] |
Circular posts | Flow rates (Q) 7 µL min−1 (for specimen) and 190 µL min−1 (for buffer) | CTCs in tumor-bearing mouse | Enrichment of tumor cells to 0.05% from the blood, in which CTCs were negligibly detected among three million blood cells | [16] |
Circular and asymmetric posts | Flow rate (Q) 0.5 mL h−1 | CTCs cluster separation from whole blood | 99% recovery of large clusters, over 87% cell viabilities | [17] |
Circular posts/Cascaded DLD modules | Flow rate (Q) 200 µL min−1 (for DLD #1) and 30 µL min−1 (for DLD #2) | Extraction of E. coli bacteria from blood samples spiked with prostate cancer cells | Depletion yield of 100% for cancer cells and 93% for red blood cells (RBCs) | [22] |
Circular posts | Flow rate (Q) 3.74 mL h−1 | Cancer-cell-derived (BxPC-3 cells) extracellular vesicles | Recovery efficiency of 39% with purity of 98.5% | [24] |
Circular posts/Integrate 1024 nano-DLD devices | Parallel processing sample flow rate (Q) up to 900 µL h−1 | Extracellular vesicles/exosomes isolation from serum and urine samples (30–200 nm) | Up to 60-fold concentration Recovery 50% | [25] |
Circular nano-DLD array with a 25–235 nm gap | Flow rate (Q) 0.1–0.2 nL min−1/Velocity (u) 200–300 µm s−1 | Separation of 20 to 110 nm beads and exosomes | Up to 100% separation | [28] |
Circular posts | High-Re regime (10 < Re < 60) /Flow rate (Q) 14 mL min−1 | Polystyrene beads (10, 15, and 20 µm) |  | [31] |
Circular posts | Average bead velocity 500–1500 µm s−1 | Polystyrene beads ranging from 2.3 to 22 µm |  | [32] |
Circular posts | Reynolds number Re < 1/Velocity (u) ≤ 0.1 cm s−1/flow rate (Q) ~ 1 µL min−1 | Separation of blood plasma from the blood cells (white, red, and platelets) | 100% recovery | [33] |
Circular posts | Flow rate (Q) 0.5 µL min−1 | Polystyrene beads/RBCs separation | 91.2% separation index | [35] |
I-shape, circular, and square posts | Flow rate (Q) 0.2 µL min−1 (for diluted blood sample) and 0.5 µL min−1 (for PBS buffer stream) | Polystyrene beads /RBCs/E. coli | 100% separation of RBCs from blood samples | [37] |
Circular and triangular pillars | Particle average velocity (v) from 0.1 to 4.5 mm s−1 | Polystyrene beads from 1.9 to3.8 μm |  | [39] |
Triangular posts/Coupling of inertial microfluidics and DLD | Flow rate (Q) 40–400 μL min−1 | Polystyrene particles (7 and 15 μm), cancer cells (MCF-7), human whole blood | Separation efficiency of over 99.9% and a target sample purity of 93.59% | [40] |
Airfoil posts | Reynolds number Re up to 100 | Separation from a mixture of 10, 15, and 20 μm beads | Efficiency of 75% (for 10 μm), 83% (for 15 μm), and 100% (for 20 μm beads) | [41] |
Arrays of I-shape, anvil shape, T-shape, L-shape, and circular posts | Flow rate (Q) 0.2 µL min−1 (for RBC sample) and 0.1 µL min−1 (for bacterial samples) | Disc-shaped RBCs/Rod-shaped E. coli (~ 0.50 μm wide and ~ 2.0 μm long) /Spherical S. epidermidis (~ 0.7 µm) /Rod-shaped K. pneumoniae (~ 0.6 μm and ~ 1.8 µm) /Rod-shaped P. aeruginosa (~ 0.6 µm and ~ 1.6 µm) | 100% separation | [42] |
Circular and inverse L-shape | Flow rate (Q) 0.8 mL min−1 | RBCs | Purity 97.4% (RBCs) | [43] |
Lo-shaped posts/cascaded filter-DLD chip | Flow rate (Q) 1 mL min−1 | Isolation of CTCs | Purity 99.995% | [44] |
Topology-optimized posts | Flow rate (Q) 6500 µL h−1 | Polystyrene beads 2–6.5-μm | Separation efficiency 92.2% | [45] |