Separation of solid-liquid and liquid-liquid phases using dielectrophoresis

Abstract

Over 3 decades after dielectrophoresis (DEP) was explored and defined, it has already been successfully applied in separating and handling bioparticles in micro and sub-micro scale biotechnology. However, nearly all of DEP applications are concentrated on the analysis and manipulation of particles in sub-micron and micron scaled systems with flow rates below mL/min. So far, none is known in process engineering for DEP in a scaled up application at flow rates of liters or even cubic meters per minute. The research described in this Ph D thesis is the first that attempts to scale up DEP application. With the research results described in this thesis, the feasibility of the DEP application in separation is verified. The proved high selectivity and controllability of DEP technique grand DEP a very promising prospect in separating and manipulating particles. The whole thesis work was implemented with three main steps, basic research of DEP mechanism and its side-effects and constrains, as a proof of principle gold particle fractionation using DEP, and a lab-scaled technical application of DEP in intensifying cross-flow membrane filtration, based on four papers