A novel algorithm for rapid estimation of magnetic particle trajectory in arbitrary magnetophoretic devices under continuous fluid flow

Magnetophoresis is one of the most popular particle manipulation schemes used in microfluidic devices. Predicting the performance of arbitrary magnetophoretic module via simulation is crucial for the realization of high-performance, purpose-built magnetophoretic devices. However, the simulation process may take a long time, slowing down the simulation throughput. This work presents a novel algorithm to rapidly predict the trajectory of magnetic particles in microfluidic devices with arbitrary magnetophoretic structures under continuous fluidic flow conditions. Based on the Eulerian–Lagrangian approach, by employing numerically calculated magnetic force and fluidic velocity datasets obtained by finite element analysis software, we used an exponential integrator inspired numerical method to solve for the motion of magnetic particles in the system with the assumption that the magnetic and fluidic forces are constants within a small period of time. The results showed that, for our application, the order of truncation error of our algorithm is comparable with the 4th Order Runge–Kutta method and commercial Runge–Kutta based solver ODE45 from MATLAB. Furthermore, our algorithm is inherently stable, thus enabling the use of arbitrary time stepping values without the need of adaptive step size adjustment, which significantly reduces simulation time when compared to the 4th Order Runge–Kutta method and ODE45. In our simulations, a maximum of 40 times reduction in simulation time can be achieved. The proposed algorithm and the performed simulations are validated experimentally.