Gravity-Aided Ultrasonic Separation of Nanoparticles from Liquid Using Macro-Scale Separator

Abstract

Acoustophoresis is the technology to separate microparticles and cells from suspending fluid. This research focuses on the separation of nanoparticles from water by using macro-scale fluidic separator which works based on gravity-aided ultrasonic standing wave technology. Titanium dioxide particles of diameter (40 nm to 100 nm) were concentrated by the combination of ultrasonic standing wave field at 2.2 MHz and gravity-aided sedimentation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of gravity-aided ultrasonic particle separator to concentrate nanoparticles. It was found that the separation efficiency is 82.85% at a flow rate of 0.1 mL/min. FEM simulations were also conducted to evaluate characteristics of variation of acoustic energy inside the fluidic channel. Results indicate that nanoparticles can be concentrated using gravity-aided ultrasonic standing wave field, however optimization of the design of the fluidic channel is required for increasing throughput of the separator.