Developing a Vacuum-Actuated Peristaltic Micropump (VPM) with Inclined Wall Design to Achieve Low Hemolysis Blood Plasma Extraction

There is a need for scalable, automated lab-on-chip systems for blood plasma separation that can be applied for diagnostics. Here, we developed a vacuum-actuated peristaltic micropump (VPM) integrating inertial microfluidic technique to separate and collect blood plasma from diluted blood. The device performs blood plasma separation with high efficiency (98.5%), quickly (<1 min), automatically, and with minimal whole blood usage (5 µL). Significantly, very little hemolysis (less than 2%) could be achieved using an inclined wall obstruction design in the vacuum actuator.