Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar 31;96(1):43-55.
doi: 10.59249/FUAH2942. eCollection 2023 Mar.

Investigation of Inlet Conditions in The Mixing Process of Nanoparticles and Blood in a T-Shaped Microfluidic Reactor with Small Rectangular Cavities

Evangelos G Karvelas  1 , Stavros N Doulkeridis  2 , Theodoros E Karakasidis  1 , Ioannis E Sarris  2
Affiliations

Investigation of Inlet Conditions in The Mixing Process of Nanoparticles and Blood in a T-Shaped Microfluidic Reactor with Small Rectangular Cavities

Evangelos G Karvelas et al. Yale J Biol Med. .

Abstract

During the metastasis of cancer cells, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are released from the primary tumor, reach the bloodstream, and colonize new organs. A potential reduction of metastasis may be accomplished through the use of nanoparticles in micromixers in order to capture the CTCs that circulates in blood. In the present study, the effective mixing of nanoparticles and the blood that carries the CTCs are investigated. The mixing procedure was studied under various inlet velocity ratios and several T-shaped micromixer geometries with rectangular cavities by using computational fluid dynamics techniques. The Navier-Stokes equations were solved for the blood flow; the discrete motion of particles is evaluated by a Lagrangian method while the diffusion of blood substances is studied by using a scalar transport equation. Results showed that as the velocity ratio between the inlet streams increases, the mixing rate of nanoparticles with the blood flow is increased. Moreover, nanoparticles are uniformly distributed across the mixing channel while their concentration is decreased along the channel. Furthermore, the evolution in time of the blood substances in the mixing channel increases with the increase of the velocity ratio between the two streams. On the other hand, the concentration of both the blood substances and the nanoparticles is decreased in the mixing channel as the velocity ratio increases. Finally, the differences in the dimensions of the rectangular cavities seems to have an insignificant effect both in the evolution in time of the blood substances and the concentration of nanoparticles in the mixing channel.

Keywords: CTCs; Computational Fluid; Discrete Element Method; Dynamics; Microfluidics; Mixing reactor; Nanoparticles.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of a) TJC geometry and b) Areas, Sections and parameters (l; s; w) for the definition of the geometry.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Focused view of a) the velocity profile of the two streams and b) glyph vectors in the L1 geometry.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Focused view of the a) Distribution of particles in the W1 geometry for Vp/Vc = 20 (red color) and b) Species diffusion in the L1 geometry under Vp = Vc (High concentration is presented with red and low with blue).
Figure 4
Figure 4
a) Mean velocity in the outlet boundary for various computational meshes, b) Computational mesh in the inlet boundary and c) Focused view of the computational mixed-type grid of tetrahedral-hexahedral elements at the inlet channels, the outlet channel and the rectangular cavity of the micromixer.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Distribution of particles inside the L1 geometry for a) Vp/Vc = 1 b) Vp/Vc = 5 c) Vp/Vc = 10 d) Vp/Vc = 20.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Concentration for each area and in each section of the mixing channel in the L1 geometry for a) Vp/Vc = 1 b) Vp/Vc = 5 c) Vp/Vc = 10 d) Vp/Vc = 20.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Total concentration in each section of the mixing channel in all of the simulated geometries for a) Vp/Vc = 5, b) Vp/Vc = 10 and Vp/Vc = 20.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Evolution in time of the added trace species concentration at the exit of the mixing channel for different velocity ratios for a) TJC geometry, b) L geometry, c) S geometry and d) W geometry.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Alix-Panabières C, Pantel K. Liquid Biopsy: From Discovery to Clinical Application. Cancer Discov. 2021. Apr;11(4):858–73. 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-20-1311 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Li P, Mao Z, Peng Z, Zhou L, Chen Y, Huang PH, et al. Acoustic separation of circulating tumor cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015. Apr;112(16):4970–5. 10.1073/pnas.1504484112 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gorges TM, Tinhofer I, Drosch M, Röse L, Zollner TM, Krahn T, et al. Circulating tumour cells escape from EpCAM-based detection due to epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. BMC Cancer. 2012. May;12(1):178. 10.1186/1471-2407-12-178 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aceto N, Bardia A, Miyamoto DT, Donaldson MC, Wittner BS, Spencer JA, et al. Circulating tumor cell clusters are oligoclonal precursors of breast cancer metastasis. Cell. 2014. Aug;158(5):1110–22. 10.1016/j.cell.2014.07.013 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alonso-Alconada L, Muinelo-Romay L, Madissoo K, Diaz-Lopez A, Krakstad C, Trovik J, et al. ENITEC Consortium. Molecular profiling of circulating tumor cells links plasticity to the metastatic process in endometrial cancer. Mol Cancer. 2014. Sep;13(1):223. 10.1186/1476-4598-13-223 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources