Dielectric monitoring of biological cell sedimentation

A dielectric theory was developed to analyze dielectric relaxation of a system in which biological cells are settling perpendicular and parallel to electrode planes. The theory predicts that the dielectric relaxation intensity () increases markedly with increasing time when the settling direction is perpendicular to electrode planes, whereas is less sensitive to the sedimentation in a direction parallel to electrode planes. These theoretical expectations agreed well with the experimental results obtained with sheep erythrocytes. Analysis based on this theory provided the sedimentation rate of sheep erythrocytes, the results being in agreement with those obtained by the conventional method.