FLOW paper published in Small Journal

Recently, Shahriar Habibi, Luca Brandt and Outi Tammisola together with their collaborators have published an article on Elasto-inertial microfluidics in Small Journal:

Sheathless Elasto-Inertial Focusing of Sub-25 Nm Particles in Straight Microchannels. S. Tanriverdi et al., Small 2025, 2503369 ( onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202503369 )

"Elasto-inertial microfluidics leverages intrinsic fluid forces—namely inertia and elasticity—to separate particles typically in the micrometer range. However, many biologically relevant particles—such as extracellular vesicles, viruses, and proteins—are nanoscale. This study demonstrates that, by using high-aspect-ratio microchannels, particles as small as 25 nm can be focused without the need for external fields.

By combining experiments with numerical simulations, the authors elucidate the migration dynamics and the role of viscoelastic forces in particle focusing. Notably, the technique effectively manipulates nanoscale biological particles such as liposomes, extracellular vesicles, and lipoproteins, highlighting its potential for medical diagnostics and targeted drug delivery. These findings open new avenues for precise, size-based particle separation with broad applications in biomedical and environmental science."