High-throughput acoustic separation of platelets from whole blood.

Platelets contain growth factors which are important in biomedical and clinical applications. In this work, we present an acoustic separation device for high-throughput, non-invasive platelet isolation. In particular, we separated platelets from whole blood at a 10 mL min(-1) throughput, which is three orders of magnitude greater than that of existing acoustic-based platelet separation techniques. Without sample dilution, we observed more than 80% RBC/WBC removal and platelet recovery. High throughput, high separation efficiency, and biocompatibility make this device useful for many clinical applications.