Separation of Microscale Chiral Objects by Shear Flow
- Powers, Thomas R.
- Fu, Henry C.
- Stocker, Roman
- Marcos
Publication date
October 2008
DOI Publisher
American Physical Society (APS) Journal
Physical Review LettersAbstract
We show that plane parabolic flow in a microfluidic channel causes nonmotile, helically shaped bacteria to drift perpendicular to the shear plane. Net drift results from the preferential alignment of helices with streamlines, with a direction that depends on the chirality of the helix and the sign of the shear rate. The drift is in good agreement with a model based on resistive force theory, and separation is efficient (>80%) and fast (<2 s). We estimate the effect of Brownian rotational diffusion on chiral separation and show how this method can be extended to separate chiral molecules
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