Analysis and utilization of Joule heating in an electromagnet integrated microfluidic device for biological applications

Joule heating in the electromagnetic cell sorting system is problematic. Our micro-device was fabricated for the rapid separation by high magnetic field gradients of electromagnet and dissipates the Joule heat energy that causes unnecessary heat-up in the device. By using a cooling channel embedded in microfluidic channel, Joule heat can be reduced to dissipate thermal energy to an active area of a microfluidic channel and maintain the temperature of device biocompatible, e.g. 37 °C. We analyzed the temperature distribution of the device using numerical model and compared with the experimental data. Finally, we demonstrated the magnetic beads separation and obtained the separation efficiency of 97%.