Crystal Growth inside Nanopores

On our quest to improve the performance of bacterial assays that use the µSiM-CA by modifying our standardized protocol, our most recent modification has caused controversy. Described here, we recently decided to add a step to our protocol where we pull fluorescently tagged Staphylococcus aureus onto the membrane by withdrawing a bacteria filled solution which we load…

I drew an approximation of the SiMPore liftoff device and ran the COMSOL model with 1 mL/min urea fluid flow in the upper channels and 2 mL/min dialysate in the bottom channels. With this initial model, the urea was cleared to 40% (60% removed). This is an instantaneous urea clearance rate of K= 0.6 mL/min….

Last week Jess helped me set up the diffusion cell with human albumin and cytochrome c. We ran 3 cells and used membranes from wafer 565. The membranes used were -1,4 (retentate 1), 3,3 (retentate 2), and 4,2 (retentate 3). The gel is posted below: The columns are (from left): Protein, control, retentate 1, filtrate…

The only problem is the diffusion is very fast with defects in there.

I have wondered if it were possible to create free-standing, nanoporous nanomembranes out of other materials (rather than my MgF2 process). The process is general enough that it should work. The major factors are Etch Selectivity between the substrate and the deposited material Film Mechanics (some films tear themselves apart due to the relative sizes…

To image the blood side (in-channel) side of the membranes, I transferred the membranes of a HD chip onto another wafer segment (SiN wafer: 4534) The transfer wasn’t clean but I got some good images. These membranes were exposed to blood flow for 4 hours in a typical rat HD setup. Post experiment, the membranes…