Dielectrophoresis (DEP) as a label-free cell separation approach in microdevices has been extensively investigated for a variety of applications. 3D microelectrodes made of conducting-PDMS inherit the merit of volumetric electrodes for generating influential DEP force throughout the entire channel depth and meanwhile, exploit low-cost fabrication process by soft lithography. However, the configuration of conducting-PDMS electrodes is limited to being embedded in sidewall of flow chamber, which leads to rather low flow rate and difficulties in extension of the flow rate. We previously reported a more effective configuration with 3D interdigitated electrodes made of silicon that assist cell sliding along solid tracks, yet such device requires expensive silicon dry etching and, moreover, the track appears to be patterned with non-straight and wavy outline, which not only hinders the flow rate but also allows cell sliding to occur only along its downstream side. Here we demonstrate low-cost silver-PDMS electrode-track featuring ideally straight outline that induces rather uniform drag to drive smooth cell sliding. Such design achieves live and dead cell separation at flow rate twice as that of silicon tracks with cell loading concentration 10 times higher. It also fully utilizes the track to enable cell sliding on both of the up- and down-stream sides. Notably, we also demonstrate that this track is expandable to be V-shape for more advanced bidirectional cell sliding, which is showcased here by tumor cells separation from lymphocytes at 1.2 mL/h. Such results greatly enhance the throughput as compared to the state-of-art conducting-PDMS based cell separator.
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials with absorption-dominated EMI shielding mechanism can effectively annihilate electromagnetic waves (EMW) and avoid their repeated EMW pollution. However, it is difficult to achieve this goal for conductive polymer-based composites (CPC), because the interface impedance mismatch between air and CPC leads to massive reflection of EMW at the interface. Pores are beneficial to EMW penetrating into the interior of CPC and causing their multiple reflection, scattering and absorption in pores, thus endowing CPC with absorption-dominated EMI shielding characteristic. Herein, highly conductive silvered aramid microfibers (CAMF) were first synthesized via dopamine-assisted electroless deposition of silver coating on aramid microfibers (AMF), and then the conductive porous PDMS composite foams (PDMSF) with absorption-dominated EMI shielding characteristic were prepared and optimized via salt template method. As a result, PDMSF with 1.7 vol% silver content, the conductivity of PDMSF can reach 10 -1 S/m, the EMI shielding efficiency (EMI SE) can reach 36.7 dB in X-band, and the average absorption ratio in EMI SE is 87%, while the density of PDMSF is only 0.28 g/cm 3 . The combination of lightweight, high EMI SE and absorption-dominated EMI shielding characteristic makes the porous PDMSF the latent EMI shielding materials in special constructions (e.g. military, confidential and nuclear facilities, etc.), aerospace, military equipments and transportation, etc.