Autonomous Sorting of Micro-Particles Using Bacterial Chemotaxis

The autonomous manipulation and assembly at the micro and nanoscale continues to be one of the main challenges in the field of micro/nanorobotics. On the other hand, biomotors are increasingly being considered as robust, versatile and cost-effective choices for a variety of micro/nanorobotic tasks. Here we propose the utilization of the motility and chemotaxis in flagellated bacteria to autonomously sort spherical particles with 6 μm and 10 μm in diameter within a microfluidic platform. Surface chemistry methods are utilized to selectively self-assemble bacteria onto the 6 μm diameter particles and separate them from 10 μm diameter particles via chemotaxis. It has been shown that within 1 hour, an increasingly larger number of 6 μm diameter particles accumulate within a 600 μm radius, near the chemo-attractant source.