MICROPARTICLE SEPARATION AND CLEANING METHOD USING COMBINATIONAL LAMINAR FLOW OF VISCOELASTIC FLUID AND VISCOUS FLUID

摘要

The present invention relates to a microparticle separation and cleaning method using the combinational laminar flow of a viscoelastic fluid and a viscous fluid. The method flows a viscous fluid together with a viscoelastic fluid in a fluid channel formed in a fluidic chip at a predetermined flow rate in accordance with the effective diameter of desired target particles contained in the viscoelastic fluid. Thus, without using a separate device and an attractive force through a change in a focusing position with respect to the target particles within the combinational laminar flow thereof formed in the fluid channel, the method can more easily separate only the desired target particles from among microparticles contained in the viscoelastic fluid toward the viscous fluid or move the target particles contained in the viscoelastic fluid toward the viscous fluid for cleaning. Therefore, it is possible to separate and clean the target particles intactly without changing a solution for inserting cells/particles therein or without a separate dilution because native biofluids used in research and clinics are mostly viscoelastic fluids. Also, if the relaxation time of the native biofluids that are viscoelastic fluids is insufficient, it is only necessary to additionally mix an artificial polymer which can increase the relaxation time, and thus the throughput per hour is very high compared to other methods. Further, the method has an effect of enabling highly efficient separation and cleaning operation merely by means of handwork of simply pushing and pumping a syringe without the need of a sophisticated pumping device because the method shows a high operation efficiency at a wide range of flow rates.