MINI REVIEW article
Front. Lab Chip Technol.
Sec. Micro- and Nano-fluidics
This article is part of the Research TopicCelebrating 2 years of Frontiers in Lab on a Chip TechnologiesView all 3 articles
Approaches to enable vortex chromatography in silicon devices
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Most analytical applications are run with conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (LC) technology, however the separation of highly complex mixtures is still challenging. One key challenge is to minimize band broadening caused by the velocity profile within the channel. Miniaturization of flow-through channels (between particles) has been mainly used to overcome this challenge, yet physical constraints limit further advancements. Moreover, packed columns often result in long separation times, restricting practical improvements in column design. Vortex Liquid Chromatography (Vortex LC) introduces a concept in which lateral vortex flows are generated to enhance transverse mass transfer and reduce axial dispersion. As a result, larger characteristic flow dimensions can be used while still achieving the separation performance normally associated with smaller channels. When identical dimensions are used in vortex LC mode, a higher, unprecedented performance can be achieved. Generating stable vortices requires an additional driving mechanism. We focus on methods that can be scaled to chromatographically relevant, i.e., micron-scale, dimensions.
Keywords: Acoustofluidics, Electroosmotic flow (EOF), Lateral mixing, secondary flows, Taylor-Aris dispersion, Vortex Chromatography, vortices
Received: 15 Dec 2025; Accepted: 04 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Sakiz and De Malsche. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wim De Malsche
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.