Separation of Microscale Chiral Objects by Shear Flow

Separation of Microscale Chiral Objects by Shear Flow

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 o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Powers, Thomas R. (Author), Fu, Henry C. (Author), Stocker, Roman (Contributor), Marcos (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society, 2010-02-23T20:25:13Z.
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Summary: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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