Dielectrophoretic Filtration and Separation: General Outlook

Electric and magnetic separation have been in use for many years in the mineral and chemical industries. The development of new technologies1 in the field of magnetic separation, such as magnetohydrostatic separation (MHS), high-gradient magnetic separation (HGMS), wet high-intensity magnetic separation (WHIMS), and magnetic filtration (MF), has generated increasing interest in the2–4 behavior of similar methods such as wet dielectric separation5 dielectrophoretic levitation and fractionation, and dielectric filtration6–7 - all using non-uniform electric fields and polarization. In all these cases dielectric particles in a heterogeneous electric or magnetic field are subjected to the action of ponderomotive (gradient) forces.