Expediting magnetic separation by using Ni wires for robot-manipulated bio-sensing system

In this study a mm-sized high-efficiency magnetic separator using Ni wires as the field gradient enhancing bodies was developed. This enables the use of bioactive beads having a few nm or smaller size that cannot be separated by a conventional magnetic separation technique. This will improve efficiency of bio-sensing much, because the smaller the beads, the larger the specific surface area, and thus the greater the number of bioactive molecules fixed on their surfaces. The developed magnetic separators are applicable to robot-manipulated bio-sensing systems.