College of Information and Electrical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Information Acquisition Technology, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China Agricultural University, Beijing, P. R. China.
College of Information and Electrical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Smart Agriculture System Integration, Ministry of Education, China Agricultural University, Beijing, P. R. China.
J Sep Sci. 2022 Oct;45(20):3900-3908. doi: 10.1002/jssc.202200308. Epub 2022 Oct 9.
Astaxanthin with high antioxidant activity is of great practical value and Haematococcus pluvialis is recognized as the best natural astaxanthin producer. The yield of Haematococcus pluvialis was often affected by the ciliate during its production, however, the use of biochemical pesticides might have a great impact on Haematococcus pluvialis. Therefore, a simple microfluidic chip with the spiral microchannel was developed for continuous-flow physical separation of ∼10 µm ciliate from ∼30 µm Haematococcus pluvialis since their different sizes resulted in different equilibrium positions in the channel due to the Dean-coupled inertial migration. First, a spiral microchannel with a width of 700 µm and a height of 130 µm in the microfluidic chip was developed using three-dimensional printing and verified to completely separate polystyrene particles of 10 µm from those of 30 µm. Then, this microfluidic chip was used to separate the actual sample, and experimental results showed that ∼80% of ciliate was continuously separated from Haematococcus pluvialis at a flow rate of 2.8 ml/min. More importantly, no additional biochemical reagents were used and the activity of Haematococcus pluvialis was not affected. This microfluidic chip featured with simple design, automatic operation, and small size is promising for purification and breeding of Haematococcus pluvialis.
虾青素具有很强的抗氧化活性，具有很大的实用价值，雨生红球藻被公认为生产天然虾青素的最佳生物。然而，在生产过程中，雨生红球藻的产量经常受到纤毛虫的影响，而生化农药的使用可能对雨生红球藻有很大的影响。因此，我们开发了一种带有螺旋微通道的简单微流控芯片，用于连续流物理分离直径约为 10μm 的纤毛虫和直径约为 30μm 的雨生红球藻，因为它们的不同大小会导致在通道中由于Dean 耦合惯性迁移而具有不同的平衡位置。首先，使用三维打印技术开发了一种宽度为 700μm、高度为 130μm 的螺旋微通道，并验证了其能够完全分离直径为 10μm 的聚苯乙烯颗粒和直径为 30μm 的聚苯乙烯颗粒。然后，将该微流控芯片用于分离实际样品，实验结果表明，在 2.8ml/min 的流速下，约 80%的纤毛虫可以连续从雨生红球藻中分离出来。更重要的是，没有使用额外的生化试剂，并且雨生红球藻的活性不受影响。这种具有简单设计、自动操作和小尺寸的微流控芯片有望用于雨生红球藻的纯化和养殖。
