Numerical Analysis of Dielectrophoresis-Based Microfluidic Chip with a Facing-Electrode Design for Cell Separation

Purpose Circulating tumor cell separation and analysis have played a critical role in cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. In this work, we aim to design and investigate a novel biochip that integrates dielectrophoresis, microfluidic technology to separate circulating tumor cells from blood cells. To create a dielectrophoresis-induced non-uniform electric field, a facing-electrode design was proposed and utilized, in which a slanted electrode array and a simple rectangular ground electrode are placed parallel on the top and bottom parts of the microfluidic channel, respectively. This design can reduce the particle position dependence in the microchannel and the complexity of the microfabrication process. Methods The separation process, efficiency, and optimization of the proposed device were numerically investigated using the finite element method. Parametric research was conducted to comprehensively examine the impact of various operating and design factors on the cell movement and trajectories in the microfluidic device. Results The results indicated the potential of the proposed biochip to ensure cancer cell separation from blood cells with high efficiency, high purity in a label-free, non-invasive, easy integration, and low-cost manner. Under the optimal conditions, the separation efficiency reached 92%, 88%, and 96% for human colon cancer cells (HT-29), red blood cells, and white blood cells, respectively. Conclusions In this study, a novel DEP-based microfluidic chip was proposed to separate HT-29 tumor cells from blood cells and numerically investigated to verify the performance of the biochip design. Our findings could provide a foundation for further theoretical and practical investigations. The proposed system can separate cancer cells from red blood cells and white blood cells as well as offers numerous advantages, such as compact size, low voltage, high efficiency, non-invasiveness, and label-free nature. The tumor cell enrichment platform has the potential for application in cancer detection, analysis, and assessment.