Method of continuously separating mixtures of microscopic dielectric particles and apparatus for carrying through this method

US5454472A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Föderung der Wissenschaften e.V. · US

Inventors

• Wolfgang Benecke · Kürten, DE
• Bernd Wagner · Looft, DE
• Rolf Hagedorn · Berlin, DE
• Gunter Fuhr · Berlin, DE
• Torsten Müller · Berlin, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 18, 1994
• Grant date: Oct 3, 1995
• Expiry date: Feb 18, 2014

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01N2030/0035
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A method of separating mixtures of microscopic dielectric particles in sunsions in an apparatus for carrying the method. A mixture of particles is forced onto guide paths by dielectrophoretic forces or by a flow of the suspension medium with an additional force, which is provided to compensate the force causing the particles to move along the guide paths for specific particle species causing the specific particle species to be fed out from the mixture of particles. The apparatus may be integrated on surfaces of silicon wafers at low cost and in mass-production numbers, and is suitable for isolating minute particles such as biological cells, cell organelles, bio molecules as well as organic dielectric particles.