Mesoscale blood cell sedimentation for processing millilitre sample volumes

Abstract

We demonstrate the efficient separation of blood cells from millilitre volumes of whole blood in minutes using a simple gravity sedimentation device. Blood cell and plasma separation is often the initial step in clinical diagnostics, and reliable separation techniques have remained a major obstacle for the success of point-of-care or remote diagnostics. Unlike plasma collection devices that rely solely on microchannels that restrict sample volume and throughput, we demonstrate the use of a hybrid micro/mesoscale sedimentation chamber to enable >99% capture of cells from millilitre blood samples in less than two minutes.