Abstract: In this project, we want to explore the possibility of detecting molecules in nanopores by building waveguides upon a silicon nanomembrane chip. The first experiment is performed by sending 650nm laser light onto our waveguides and detecting the light waveguided by our patterned structure. This is used to prove that light can overcome the…
As part of my thesis, I am trying to get a non-fouling pattern on a substrate which resembles our porous membranes to investigate cell behavior including cell adhesion and migration and to compare with our previous results which was obtained on porous membranes. This study can separate the role of pore edges and disrupted surface…
In my previous post, our urea clearance for the single pass experiments was found to be ~140 ml/min/m^2, which was similar to Fissell/Roy’s value except we used a flow rate of 1uL/min whereas they used a flow rate of 10 ml/min however. To show that we could achieve even greater clearance values than their group…
This is a continuation of my post from last time where I looked at modeling actual pore geometries in COMSOL. In this post, I explored the new feature that we have with COMSOL that is the Particle Tracing Module. This module really enables the visualization of particle behavior in our systems where we can better…
We have been collaborating with Britta Engelhardt’s group at the University of Bern in Switzerland since Tejas and I met them at the CNS Barriers conference in Paris in 2015. They are interested in studying live T-cell transmigration across human BBB models as part of their research program in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Prior to working…
We manufactured a wafer specifically for SERS experiments in the hope of recapturing larger pore distributions/pore densities that we observed in some of the prototype runs of NPN. Natively, it’s a little thicker, and a little less porous than the 1085 material. By partially etching the membranes from the backside, we should be able to…
Hello Everyone, As you probably know, i have been working on calibration curves for NPN and TE membranes and comparison of these two sets of experiments with each other. This post is all about how i made the calibration curves and how the comparison of TE and NPN experiments would look like. Plotting Calibration Curve…
As Greg posted last time, he and I have been working on a manuscript for all of the tomography stuff that we have done that we are going to hopefully submit this week. In that paper, we covered all the tomography techniques that Greg uses to reconstruct models of the pores and then used these…
[latexpage] The solution to the problem of diffusion from a semi-infinite solution to a perfectly absorbing surface is found on page 32 of Crank’s classic text (The Mathematics of Diffusion): \begin{equation} \frac{C(y,t)}{C_o} = erf(\frac{y}{2\sqrt{Dt}}) \end{equation} Where D is the diffusion coefficient is the initial concentration everywhere in the bulk and erf is the error function….
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….