Abstract
Acoustophoresis is a promising method in micro and nanotechnology
attracting particular attentions as an efficient particle handling
method. Droplet-based microfluidics has emerged as a valuable tool for
miniaturization of biological reactions. This study numerically
investigates a method of enriching the concentration of particles inside
a droplet. The advantage of this method is that it proposes a
non-contact solution to handle biological particles such as RBCs, CTCs
and proteins. The finite volume method (FVM) was used as a CFD tool to
model and simulate the problem. Particles were simulated using the
discrete phase model (DPM). The numerically acquired results were
compared with experimental data and were validated. Water droplet sizes
were increased with an increase in the ratio of water to oil flow rate.
Furthermore, some geometrical aspects were investigated in this work. An
optimized microchip geometry, which resulted in an optimal enrichment of
particles, was proposed by comparing different geometries.