Secondary-flow-aided single-train elastic-inertial focusing in low elasticity viscoelastic fluids

Elastic-inertial focusing has attracted increasing interest in recent years due to the three-dimensional (3D) single-train focusing ability it offers. However, multi-train focusing, instead of single-train focusing, was observed in viscoelastic fluids with low elasticity as a result of the competition between inertia effect and viscoelasticity effect. To address this issue, we employed the secondary flow to facilitate single-train elastic-inertial focusing in low elasticity viscoelastic fluids. A three-section contraction-expansion channel was designed to induce the secondary flow to pinch the multiplex focusing trains into a single one exactly at the channel centerline. After demonstrating the focusing process and mechanism in our device, we systematically explored and discussed the effects of particle diameter, operational flow rate, polymer concentration, and channel dimension on particle focusing performances. Our device enables single-train focusing of particles in viscoelastic fluids with low elasticity, and offers advantages of planar single-layer structure, and sheathless, external-field free operation.