Development of separaion method using pressure-driven flow assisted miniaturizing free-flow electrophoresis

In this paper, we introduced a new separation method based on pressure-driven flow-assisted miniaturizing free-flow electrophoresis (PDF-assisted μ-FFE). In the developed separation device, mot ion of particles is affected by hydrodynamic drag and electrophoretic forces due to the external pressure-driven flow and electric field. Under a certain fixed pressure-driven flow, the particle movements are determined by their electrophoretic mobility. Using the simple principle, we separated micro-sized particles depending on their electrophoretic mobility in the T-shaped separation device. The separation method has advantages of low-cost, simple device fabrication and bubble-free operation, compared with conventional μ-FFE methods. Therefore, we expect that the separation method will be a useful tool for filtering or separating biochemical samples.