Holey Electroosmosis

ByJessica Snyder

First off –

OK now on to the science.

Wafer 747 has a huge amount of pinholes, and in this study I wanted to see how these pinholes would effect electroosmosis.  I will show results here from two experiments with these holey membranes.  These membranes have a lower rate of electroosmosis than previous tested membranes.  I oxidized the 747 chips just  like the previous samples, but since I haven’t tested any of the newer membranes for electroosmosis, we can’t be sure that a material difference has changed the inherant rate of EO.  In the following figure, membranes A and B are compared to a membrane from a previous trial.

Here are images of membranes A and B:

A

B

Here are a couple of guesses to why super pinholed membranes may have slower EO: 1) If large pinholes do not have bulk water flow, could water flow in the opposite direction to equalize pressure? 2) If pinholes do not contribute to bulk flow, does their reduction of membrane active area lower the total flow rate?

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