Development of flow through dielectrophoresis microfluidic chips for biofuel production: Sorting and detection of microalgae with different lipid contents.

In this study, a continuous flow dielectrophoresis (DEP) microfluidic chip was fabricated and utilized to sort out the microalgae (C. vulgaris) with different lipid contents. The proposed separation scheme is to allow that the microalgae with different lipid contents experience different negative or no DEP force at the separation electrode pair under the pressure-driven flow. The microalgae that experience stronger negative DEP will be directed to the side channel while those experience less negative or no DEP force will pass through the separation electrode pair to remain in the main channel. It was found that the higher the lipid content inside the microalgae, the higher the crossover frequency. Separation of the microalgae with 13% and 21% lipid contents, and 24% and 30%-35% lipid contents was achieved at the operating frequency 7 MHz, and 10 MHz, respectively. Moreover, separation can be further verified by measurement of the fluorescence intensity of the neutral lipid inside the sorted algal cells.