ABSTRACT
Effect of Frequency And Electrode Configuration On Yeast Cells Subjected To Traveling Electric Fields
Speaker: Sai Nudurupati
Advisor: Dr. Pushpendra Singh
Biological particles, such as bacteria and viruses are the major cause for diseases and much of the current research has been devoted in identifying, and separating them. One way to trap these micro/nano sized particles is by conventional dielectrophoresis, which occurs due to varying electric fields. A much more efficient way is to combine with traveling wave dielectrophoresis force and torque, in which case the fluid is not required to be pumped into the channel. However, the particle electrodynamics is not only explained using these forces, but also with viscous drag associated with the fluid and the electrostatic and hydrodynamic particle-particle interactions. The numerical scheme is based on Distributed Lagrange Multiplier (DLM) method and an operator splitting technique for solving the equations of motion for the fluid and particles. Motion of the particles is also influenced by the specific configuration used, and hence two different configurations, first symmetric and then staggered domain is studied. The setup is a typical micro fluidic channel (MEMS device) with electrodes at the bottom. Yeast cells suspended in aqueous medium is modeled using a two shell model. It is found that the motion of the particles is determined primarily on the frequency dependent Clausius-Mossotti factor which is complex. Further it is observed that the electric field is different for the two electrode configurations considered, and hence particles motion changes with geometry.
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