Modeling and simulation of a cost-effective microfluidic circuit for particles' manipulation

In this paper we propose the modeling and simulation using Comsol 3.5a of a microfluidic chip, capable to run several tasks such as focusing, mixing, sorting and trapping nano and microbeads. The microfluidic chip, based on Polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) and Polyethylenenaphtalate (PEN), is cost effective, flexible and totally biocompatible. The fluidic part is controlled both by pressure driven flow and electrostatics. The manipulation of the beads is purely electrostatic and it is based on a mixed approach: electrophoretic (EP) and dielectrophoretic (DEP). The simulations are run in Comsol 3.5a using basically the MEMS module. The nano and microbeads used are metallic (gold) and dielectric (polystyrene, fused silica).