Int. J. Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, Vol. 1, No.

1, 2013 83

Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and metering:

towards lab-in-a-tube applications for blood
diagnostics

Tingjie Li and Yaxi Fan

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering,
The University of Western Ontario,
N6A 5B9, Canada
E-mail: tli243@uwo.ca
E-mail: yfan46@uwo.ca

Qiuquan Guo
Biomedical Engineering Program,
Faculty of Engineering,
The University of Western,
Ontario, N6A 5B9, Canada
E-mail: qguo28@uwo.ca

Limin Zhang
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering,
The University of Western Ontario,
N6A 5B9, Canada
E-mail: lzhang.eng@gmail.com

Jun Yang*
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering,
The University of Western Ontario,
N6A 5B9, Canada
and
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering,
The University of Western Ontario,
N6A 5B9, Canada
E-mail: jyang@eng.uwo.ca
*Corresponding author

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

84 T. Li et al.

Abstract: Diagnostics plays a critical role in human health, while blood

analysis is one of the most common clinical diagnoses. Biomedical engineers
have been developing technologies that can robotically perform accurate and
rapid blood analysis for field application. The simplified fabrication processes
and low cost materials become the tendency of point-of-care (POC) devices for
blood analysis. Recently, lab-in-a-tube technique comes up as a simple and
robust method for POC measurements of multiple analytes. This paper
proposed a tubing system with out-of-plane valves using tygon tubing
assembled on a circular disc (CD) for blood separation. Pure plasma could be
achieved within minutes after extracting blood from human body. The
out-of-plane valve showed excellent capability in preventing backflow and
reverse mixing due to diffusion. Therefore, the lab-in-a-tube platform has
promising applications for the automation of POC analysis, especially
important for the rural areas without enough medical resources.

Keywords: out-of-plane valve; lab-in-a-tube; blood diagnostics.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Li, T., Fan, Y., Guo, Q.,
Zhang, L. and Yang, J. (2013) ‘Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and
metering: towards lab-in-a-tube applications for blood diagnostics’, Int. J.
Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.83–94.

Biographical notes: Tingjie Li received his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering

Mechanics and his Master’s degree in Solid Mechanics both from Beijing
Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Since
September 2008, he has been working toward his PhD in Mechanical and
Materials Engineering at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada,
involved in the development of compact and low-cost biomedical devices for
fast and accurate blood analysis. His research interests include bioMEMS,
MEMS fabrication technologies, thermal plastic molding, surface chemistry,
and analytical electrochemistry.

Yaxi Fan received her Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Mechanics from

Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China in 2007 and her Master’s
degree in Mechanical and Materials Engineering from the University of
Western Ontario, London, Canada in 2010. Her research interests include
thermal plastic molding, MEMS fabrication technologies, and surface
chemistry.

Qiuquan Guo received his BS (2005) in Mechanical Engineering and MS

(2007) in Physical Electronics from Beijing Institute of Technology, China, and
his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario,
Canada in 2011. He is interested in the development of engineering systems for
biomedical study. Currently he is a Postdoc Fellow in the University of
Western Ontario supported by MITACS programme.

Limin Zhang received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Jiamusi

University, China in 1998, and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Western Ontario, Canada in 2011. He is currently working as a
Mechanical Engineer in AMEC Natural Resources Americas, Canada.

Jun Yang received his BSc in 1998 and MSc in 2001 from Beijing Institute of
Technology, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of Alberta in
2004. He conducted his postdoctoral training in Mechanical/Biomedical
Engineering from 2004 to 2005 at Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2005, he
joined The University of Western Ontario. Now he is an Associate Professor in
the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, and Biomedical
 Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and metering 85

Engineering Program, The University of Western Ontario. His research

interests include MEMS/NEMS, nanotechnology, microfabrication, surface
engineering, AFM, Lab-on-a-chip, nanomaterials, green technologies and
biophysics.

1 Introduction

Diagnostics plays a critical role in healthcare to provide a timely healthcare for both
normal and high-risk group of patients. Approximately 740 types of tests are normally
conducted through central clinical laboratories (Bailey, 1997), and a large number of
these analyses are performed on blood. The blood analysis cost $50 billion across the
globe: $17 billion goes to the manufacturers of in vitro diagnostic equipment and
supplies, and $33 billion is used for medical technology/clinical chemistry staff and other
associated service costs (MedPro Month, 1997). Obviously, new technologies are needed
to reduce the cost of blood analysis in order to make it accessible for people all over the
world.
The time value of diagnostic testing is very important. The high accuracy of results is
ensured only if the test result is provided instantaneously, which is hardly realisable by
the majority of diagnostics done in the central lab. For example, real-time results for
blood glucose tests are often mandatory as the concentration of physiological chemical
rapidly change. The timely manner further increases the weightiness of point-of-care
(POC) analysis devices. Currently, a number of high accuracy biotechnologies have been
developed and used. However, not all these technologies could be transferred and
affordable for those low-resource setting people in developing countries. Meanwhile, a
formal lab environment and experienced professionals are often not possible on the field.
Developing a simpler, more robotic and affordable devices become necessary.
Blood analysis is composed of sample collection, preparation (separation or
concentration) and detection. The conventional bench-top blood separation approach uses
a large-scale and high-speed centrifuge, followed by another dedicated system to perform
the analysis. A miniaturised, highly integrated and automatic system is required for POC
diagnostics. Lab-on-a-chip (Figeys and Pinto, 2000) technology provides an automatic,
fast and cost-effective solution for blood analysis. Recently, significant effort has been
invested into the miniaturisation of microfluidic devices to reduce cost, turnaround time,
and sample volume for blood analysis assays (Haeberle et al., 2006; Yeo et al., 2006;
Yang et al., 2006; Blattert et al., 2004). One of the directions of lab-on-a-chip research is
to explore low cost materials and to develop simple microfabrication techniques for
lab-on-a-chip devices. Particularly those microfabrication techniques do not require clean
room processes. A wax printer (Kaigala et al., 2007), a PDMS/polymer tape composite
(Kim et al., 2009) and even chromatography paper (Martinez et al., 2008) were employed
for express fabrication of microfluidic devices. Lab-on-a-CD (Madou et al., 2006)
technology, as a main branch of lab-on-a-chip technology, turns out to be an ideal
miniaturisation for blood separation and analysis, which is realised by the intrinsic
pumping and separation mechanisms based on the centrifugal field on the entire circular
disc (CD) platform.
86 T. Li et al.

Recently, Li et al. (2010a) integrated microsensors within tubing for POC

measurements, which has validated the feasibility and importance of lab-in-a-tube for
POC diagnostic. However, the blood sample used in this design was not separated. The
accuracy of measurement results generated from the microsensors embedded in the
tubing was affected and can be increased if the blood plasma was separated and extracted
from whole blood. Therefore, this paper shows a simple and low-cost tubing network
fabricated on a CD platform for parallel blood treatments. Out-of-plane valves were
introduced into our tubing network (Li et al., 2010b, 2011) to stop the reflow of blood
cells back to plasma, retaining the purity of plasma. This out-of-plane valve is easier to
implement than other existing microfluidic valves techniques (Andersson et al., 2001;
Cho et al., 2007; Feng et al., 2003; Park et al., 2007; Steigert et al., 2007).
This paper presents a robotic and simple method for whole blood separation and
metering. Section 2 introduces the experimental design and details of making
microchannels using inexpensive tygon tubing. In Section 3, the performance of blood
separation and metering is presented, and the simplicity and reliability of different
microchannel configurations are discussed.

2 Experiments

2.1 Device fabrication

3D microchannel network was constructed using tygon tubing (inner diameter 0.508 mm)
on a CD platform that was cut from a piece of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) sheet.
Two different methods were developed to fabricate tubing-based 3D microchannel
networks: insertion and stretch across. For the insertion method, holes were drilled using
the electric solder iron at pre-defined places on the CD. After that, the tubing was guided
through these holes to form a 3D structure of microchannels. Cross weaving the tubing in
two adjacent holes generates a bump, termed an out-of-plane valve [Figure 1(a)]. In the
stretch across method, tubing was bent with some specific points of the tubing being
fixed by tape on top of CD platform to form a desired geometric configuration, forming
the same valve as above the tubing could be easily configured according to the designed
3D structures [Figure 1(b)].

2.2 Blood separation

Human whole blood was drawn from a healthy donor in the university hospital and stored
in a vacutainer containing anticoagulant (EDTA) at 4°C. The whole blood was injected
with syringe or sucked by passive capillary force into the tubing system. After that the
outer end of the tubing was melted using an electric solder iron and closed up with a
tweezer. The other end of the tubing was kept open throughout the trial. Once the blood
sample was loaded, the CD was placed on a 12 V stepper motor (RDK-STEPER, from
Luminary Micro) controlled by a laptop through a control board for any function of
rotating speed and duration to exert a centrifugal force on the whole blood sample. The
varied angular velocity and spinning duration was studied in our experiments to find the
optimum parameter for blood separation. After a spinning cycle finished, the plasma was
suspended in the innermost section and the blood cells had accumulated in the outer end
of the tubing. The plasma section of tubing was cut down, and its plasma was drained to
 Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and metering 87

detection site. Alternatively, separated plasma can be kept in the tubing and detected by
embedded biosensors.

Figure 1 Schematics of microchannel nerworks fabricated with tubing using two methods,
(a) insertion method, (b) stretch across method, (c) photograph of tubing microchannel
networks constructed on the CD platform (d) centrifugal force (Fc), capillary force (fc)
and hydrostatic force (Fh) exerting on the sample at the start point of the valve

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

2.3 Numerical simulation

Numerical simulations provided a further reference for designing of the out-of-plane
valves. Blood separation in the microchannel networks was simulated in a rotating frame
using the Eulerian multiphase model of Fluent 6.3.26.

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Performance of blood separation

When the CD spins, three main forces, centrifugal force (Fc), capillary force (fc) and
hydrostatic force (Fh) exert on the sample inside the uphill side of the valve [Figure 1(d)].
Fc, fc and Fh can be expressed as:
z1
Fc = s ∫
z0
ρω2 zdz (1)

f c = cσ cos θ (2)
88 T. Li et al.

h
Fh = s ∫
0
ρgdh (3)

where s is the cross-section area of inner tubing, Z0 and Z1 are the distances from the
rotational centre to the tubing inlet and first valve respectively, ρ is the blood density, ω
is the angular frequency, c is the length of contact line between the microchannel wall
and the moving front of the flow, σ is the surface tension, θ is the contact angle of blood
on the tubing surface and h is the height of the valve. A certain angular speed is required
for the sample to break an out-of-plane valve. It means that centrifugal force [here
controlled with angular speed (ω)] must be larger than the sum of capillary force
(depends on channel size and surface treatment) and the hydrostatic force [can be
adjusted under different height (h) of the valve], in order to move the sample forward.
Therefore, a certain angular speed is required to control the ‘open’ or ‘close’ state of an
out-of-plane valve. The ‘breaking’ angular frequency, so called burst frequency of an
out-of-plane valve can be obtained by solving the force balance equation below:
Fc = f c + Fh (4)

The burst frequency, which is the function of four geometric parameters Z0, Z1, c and h
can be derived by solving equation (1) to equation (4).

cσ cos θ + ρghs
ω = ± 2× (5)
sρ ( Z12 − Z 02 )

The analysis above indicates that the magnitude of burst frequency could be easily
adjusted by altering the height (h) of the valve. The adjustable burst frequency ensures
that the sample flows beyond respective valve sequentially under different speeds.
Furthermore, this approach can be further extended to build more complex 3D
microchannel networks. For example, one can add manifolds and fittings into 3D
microchannel networks to realise flow mixing and flow branching.

Figure 2 Performance of blood separation, (a) during rotation, the blood cells would flow
outward, and the plasma was forced to flow inward (b) after the rotation, blood cells
accumulated in the blood cell section and the rest of the microchannel was filled with
plasma

Notes: The circled area 1 shows the plasma-blood cell interface. The circled area 2 shows
pure plasma in a plasma section.
 Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and metering 89

Figure 3 The plasma-blood cells interface between the plasma section and blood cells section,
(a) with the out-of-plane valve, the interface is clear and blood cells are not easy to
diffuse into the plasma section (b) without the out-of-plane valve, the blood cells tend to
move back to the plasma section, so the plasma-blood cell interface is not clear (c) only
few blood cells existed in purified plasma (d) blood cells aggregated after separation

During the spinning process, both blood cells and plasma experience the resulting forces
which allow them to overcome the resistance of the out-of-plane valves. Due to the
density difference between blood cells and plasma, they move in two opposite directions
[Figure 2(a)] and eventually separate [Figure 2(b)]. This separation process of blood is
called sedimentation. There are two major factors to evaluate the performance of
separation: plasma yield and separation efficiency with respect to the hematocrit of the
whole blood sample. The separation efficiency η is defined as ŋ = (CFC – CPC) / CPC,
where CFC is the original cell concentration for whole blood and CPC is the cell
concentration in the plasma section. In the experiments, a clear interface between blood
cells and plasma was observed after 30 seconds at a spinning speed of 2,000 RPM, after
spinning for another 280 seconds at the same speed, nearly 100% separation efficiency
was obtained. Figures 3(a) and 3(b) compare the plasma-blood cells interfaces with and
without out-of-plane valve, which shows that the valve has successfully prevented the
reflow of blood cells. Figure 3(c) shows that only a few blood cells exist in the separated
plasma, which Figure 3(d) illustrates that blood cells tightly aggregate. The plasma yield
ηp is based on the length occupied by the plasma in different sections of the tubing, which
is calculated by ŋP = LP / (LP + LR), where LP is the length occupied by the plasma in
plasma section and LR is the length of plasma in the red blood cell section. Under these
experimental conditions, a 95% plasma yield can be eventually achieved. According to
the experimental data, plasma yield increases proportionally with increasing of time and
angular frequency. Figure 4 shows that the plasma yield reaches 90% in 240 seconds and
finally reaches 95% in 280 seconds at an angular speed of 2,000 RPM. It also indicates
90 T. Li et al.

that blood separation proceeds faster when the spinning angular speed is larger. The
speed of sedimentation decreases gradually in the post separation process, because the
viscosity in the blood cell section increases as the blood cell concentration rises. Different
angular velocity and rotational time could be chosen to achieve an optimised plasma
yield as needed.

Figure 4 Plasma yield vs. time of spinning and rotational speed

Notes: The square-dash line shows the plasma yield under 2,000 RPM, but different
spinning time. The triangle-dash line indicates the correlation between plasma
yield at 200 seconds and rotational speed. The centrifugal force is proportional to
the square of the angular velocity.

3.2 Numerical results

In the modelling, forces acting on the suspended blood cells in the radial direction can be
simplified as net centrifugal force FC and Stokes force FS
FC = (2πf ) 2 z pV p ( ρc − ρ p ) (6)

FS = −6πμRu (7)

where f is rotational frequency of the CD platform, Vp and zp are the volume and the
radial position of blood cells respectively, ρc and ρp are the mass density of blood cell and
plasma respectively, R is the radius of the blood cell which drifts in the plasma of
viscosity of μ at certain velocity (u).
The Stokes force [equation (7)] on the cell is balanced by the exerted centrifugal force
[equation (6)] leading to the settling velocity (Haeberle et al., 2006) u.
u = S p z p (2πf ) 2 (8)

Sp is the cell sedimentation coefficient calculated by

 Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and metering 91

mc ⎛ ρp ⎞
Sp = ⎜1 − ρ ⎟ (9)
6πμR ⎝ C ⎠

where mc is the mass of blood cell. Time dependent 3D simulations were carried out with
an open inlet and no-slip boundary condition at the channel walls. The whole blood is
assumed to consist of two phases: plasma and blood cells. The result of numerical
calculation is shown in Figure 5. During the separation process, a distinct interface
appeared between the purified plasma and the sedimentation part of the blood cells. In
fact, this interface is a narrow band where the blood cell concentration gradually
increases from the plasma section to the blood cell section.

Figure 5 Simulation result of the whole blood separation

Note: The geometry and rotating speed are consistent with experimental conditions.

3.3 Discussion
Based on the results above, function for the out-of-plane valves can be broken down into
two folds: preventing reverse mixing and metering. Hematocrit, volume fraction of blood
cells, is approximately 45% for the whole blood. When determining the locations of the
out-of-plane valves, we need to make sure that the plasma-blood cell interface locates
inside the blood cell section, or in the ultimate case, in the downhill side of the
out-of-plane valve close to the blood cell section [Figure 2(b)]. In other words, the length
of the blood cell section should be slightly larger than 45%. Thus, when the CD platform
stops spinning, the plasma-blood cell interface holds stably because the out-of-plane
valve prevents diffusion of blood cells back into the plasma section.
Metering is the other function being realised, which is important for quantitative
blood analysis. Here, metering is realised by a pair of out-of-plane valves. A certain
amount of plasma can be trapped in a microchannel segment whose length is known and
92 T. Li et al.

determined by the two pre-designed out-of-plane valves. The extra plasma overflows to
somewhere else. Therefore, two out-of-plane valves can metre a specific amount of
plasma for the following blood analysis. Compared to other microvalves installed in the
lab-on-a-CD systems, the out-of-plane valve is conceptually simple, but functionally
powerful.

Figure 6 Schematics of five kinds of out-of-plane valves, (a) Ω, insertion valve; (b) Ω, stretch
across valve; (c) wedge, insertion valve; (d) wedge, stretch across valve; (e) zigzag,
stretch across valve

Figure 7 Plasma yields of five types of valve structures under 2,000 RPM

Tubing has special micro/macro channel structure. The small inner size of the tubing
meets the requirements of microfluidic system, while its large outer size makes it easy to
handle. Furthermore, inherent circular channel of tubing eliminate the complexity to
fabricate round shape channel. The circular channel provides a suitable environment for
blood flow, similar to human blood vessel, which can reduce the possibility of cell
damage. Applying tubing to fabricate 3D microchannel networks is a simple, fast and
inexpensive approach at the proof-of-concept stage in the research, particularly for this
 Out-of-plane valve for blood separation and metering 93

work. We are able to build up 3D microchannel networks with valves on the CD platform
within just a few minutes, only utilising the electric iron solder, tape and tubing.
The advantages of the tubing-based microfluidic device are not only its simple and
low-cost fabrication process, but also its compatibility with flexible structures to form a
variety of designs. The tubing structure may vary from device to device, and the
overhanging structure may deform during the implementation. Especially, the height of
the valve is possible to increase or decrease. In order to observe how that affects
performance, diverse valve structures were tested and compared. Control experiments
were carried out on five different structures of valves (Figure 6) and the plasma yields
were recorded under predetermined time points (Figure 7). There is no significant
difference observed among five kinds of valve structures. In resource-limit area, this
tubing-based out-of-plane valve had satisfactory performance under different shape until
it collapsed.

4 Conclusions

A polymer tubing-based centrifugal microfluidic platform was developed for automatic

blood separation and metering. The out-of-plane valves were used to isolate the separated
blood cells and plasma, ensuring the purity of plasma after separation. Meanwhile, a pair
of out-of-plane valves can be used to meter the plasma volume. 100% separation
efficiency and 95% plasma yield were achieved for whole blood using this method. This
is a simple, fast and inexpensive approach to construct 3D microchannel networks. This
approach is promising for POC diagnosis because it can be integrated with biosensors for
further analytical analysis.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from Natural Science and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and
Ministry of Research and Innovation under Early Research Award (ERA) grant.

References
Andersson, H., Van der Wijngaart, W., Griss, P., Niklaus, F. and Stemme, G. (2001) ‘Hydrophobic
valves of plasma deposited octafluorocyclobutane in DRIE channels’, Sensors and Actuators
B: Chemical, Vol. 75, Nos. 1–2, pp.136–141.
Bailey, T. (1997) ‘A practicum on making point-of-care testing work’, American Clinical
Laboratory, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp.10–11.
Blattert, C., Jurischka, R., Tahhan, I., Schoth, A., Kerth, P. and Menz, W. (2004) ‘Separation of
blood in microchannel bends’, Conf. Proc. IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Soc., Vol. 4, pp.2627–2630.
Cho, H., Kim, H.Y., Kang, J.Y. and Kim, T.S. (2007) ‘How the capillary burst microvalve works’,
Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Vol. 306, No. 2, pp.379–385.
Feng, Y., Zhou, Z., Ye, X. and Xiong, J. (2003) ‘Passive valves based on hydrophobic
microfluidics’, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 108, Nos. 1–3, pp.138–143.
Figeys, D. and Pinto, D. (2000) ‘Lab-on-a-chip: a revolution in biological and medical sciences’,
Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 72, No. 9, pp.330a–335a.
94 T. Li et al.

Haeberle, S., Brenner, T., Zengerle, R. and Ducree, J. (2006) ‘Centrifugal extraction of plasma
from whole blood on a rotating disk’, Lab-on-a-Chip, Vol. 6, No. 6, pp.776–781.
Kaigala, G.V., Ho, S., Penterman, R. and Bavkhouse, C.J. (2007) ‘Rapid prototyping of
microfluidic devices with a wax printer’, Lab-on-a-Chip, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.384–387.
Kim, J., Surapaneni, R. and Gale, B.K. (2009) ‘Rapid prototyping of microfluidic systems using a
PDMS/polymer tape composite’, Lab-on-a-Chip, Vol. 9, No. 9, pp.1290–1293.
Li, C.Y., Shutter, L.A., Wu, P.M., Ahn, C.H. and Narayan, R.K. (2010a) ‘Potential of a simple
lab-on-a-tube for point-of-care measurements of multiple analyses’, Lab-on-a-Chip, Vol. 10,
No. 11, pp.1476–1479.
Li, T., Zhang, L., Leung, K. and Yang, J. (2010b) ‘Out-of-plane microvalves for whole blood
separation on lab-on-a-CD’, Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Vol. 20,
No. 10, p.105024.
Li, T., Guo, Q., Zhang, L. and Yang, J. (2011) ‘A centrifugal lab-in-a-tubing platform enabling
automatic point-of-care blood diagnostics’, Proceeding of the IEEE International Conference
on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), Beijing, China, pp.211–216.
Madou, M., Zoval, J., Jia, G.Y., Kido, H., Kim, J. and Kim, N. (2006) ‘Lab on a CD’, Annual
Review of Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.601–628.
Martinez, A., Phillips, S., Wiley, B., Gupta, M. and Whitesides, G. (2008) ‘FLASH: a rapid
method for prototyping paper-based microfluidic devices’, Lab-on-a-Chip, Vol. 8, No. 12,
pp.2146–2150.
MedPro Month (1997) ‘Diagnostic testing, outcomes and POC’, Medical Data International,
January, Vol. 7, No. 1.
Park, J.M., Cho, Y.K., Lee, B.S., Lee, J.G. and Ko, C. (2007) ‘Multifunctional microvalves control
by optical illumination on nanoheaters and its application in centrifugal microfluidic devices’,
Lab Chip, Vol. 7, No. 5, pp.557–564.
Steigert, J., Brenner, T., Grumann, M., Riegger, L., Lutz, S., Zengerle, R. and Ducree, J. (2007)
‘Integrated siphon-based metering and sedimentation of whole blood on a hydrophilic
lab-on-a-disk’, Biomedical Microdevices, Vol. 9, No. 5, pp.675–679.
Yang, S., Undar, A. and Zahn, J.D. (2006) ‘A microfluidic device for continuous, real time blood
plasma separation’, Lab-on-a-Chip, Vol. 6, No. 7, pp.871–880.
Yeo, L.Y., Friend, J.R. and Arifin, D.R. (2006) ‘Electric tempest in a teacup: the tea leaf analogy to
microfluidic blood plasma separation’, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 89, No. 10, p.103516.