Recent progress of inertial microfluidics for high-throughput and scalable separation of microscale bioparticles

Separating micro- and nano-sized biological objects (i.e., bioparticles) from complex- and non-target matrices is critical to most bioanalytical processes, such as clinical diagnosis and drug development. Although the mainstream of bioparticle separation is membrane-based filtration and-/or centrifugation technologies, the separation of bioparticles having complex sample matrixes with large size and shape variations seems complicated due to the membranes' predetermined pore characteristics. In addition, membrane-based filtration and centrifugation are challenging to perform in a continuous manner, showing a limitation regarding throughput and scalability in processing volumes. Recently, many studies have been conducted to achieve continuous bioparticle separation using inertial microfluidics with high resolution, high throughput, and membrane-free fashion. This review scrutinizes recent research trends in bioparticle separation based on inertial microfluidic devices in the context of microchannel designs, working principles, application contents, and scalability. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.