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US 11,554,377 B2Granted
Object separating
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsViktor Shkolnikov, Daixi Xin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An object separator may include a substrate, a fluid channel supported by the substrate, a pair of electrodes along the fluid channel to form a dielectrophoretic force to interact with an object entrained in a fluid and an inertial pump supported by the substrate to move the fluid along the fluid channel.
Claims13
A method for separating an object in a fluid, the method comprising:
- moving a fluid entraining a first object and a second object through a fluid channel during a first pass;
- applying a first dielectrophoretic force to the first object within the fluid channel during the first pass to retain the first object within the fluid channel;
- following the first pass, moving the fluid to a holding reservoir;
- altering application of the first dielectrophoretic force to release the first object within the fluid channel;
- ejecting the released first object from the fluid channel;
- moving the fluid from the holding reservoir through the fluid channel during a second pass;
- applying a second dielectrophoretic force to the second object during the second pass to retain the second object within the fluid channel;
- following the second pass, altering application of the second dielectrophoretic force to release a second object within the fluid channel;
- and
- ejecting the released second object from the fluid channel.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.