Electro-osmosis with polymeric membranes
The Burns-Zidney paper uses streaming potential to measure the zeta potential of polymeric membranes. This means that polymeric membranes should also be capable of performing electro-osmosis, essentially the opposite of streaming potential. For more on this, I have a knowledge page that I’m working on entitled Electrophoretic Cell.
I punched out two 30kD cellulose membranes from Millipore, swished them in PBS, and sealed them in the stir cell. I assembled the electrodes and turned the supply on to 15V (which was about 10mA current). PBS passed through the cellulose to the negative electrode fast than our membrane; it only took 8 min for 50uL as compared to more like 13min. However the active area of the cellulose membrane is much larger than the two small slits of pnc-Si.
I didn’t have any luck with assembly of 30kD PES. With 15V there was no electrolysis occurring at the electrodes. Perhaps this is because of the poor wetting characteristics of the PES. I’ll try this again tomorrow with overnight pre-wet PES.