Hi all, Sometimes for flow modeling I assume all pores to be identical in size. However, since larger pores allow much higher passage of flow, the above assumption will generally underestimate the prediction of flow. Presented here is a simple example, base on the following pore distribution (obtained from a SEM image): Assuming all…
The blog has migrated to a new hosting provider. This means that the passwords for owncloud and the blog are no longer in sync. Owncloud has been upgraded from 5.0.18 to 7.0.4. The passwords have not been changed and are the same used for the Wikis, which now reside on their own domain. Any issue,…
I want to verify that I can grow a confluent monolayer of cells on my MgF2 nanomembranes. I have tried to do this in the past, but have only gotten sparse cells overall before the membranes ruptured. I believe that part of the problem was that I was not seeding at a very high density…
This is more work that Randi did looking at ADSCs migrating towards HUVEC networks. Motivation: To demonstrate the migration of ADSC toward pre-formed HUVEC networks when ADSC are seeded 4 hours after HUVEC. Method: Monday – Coat 4 wells of a 96 well plate with 100% Geltrex, place in incubator. Seed 20,000 HUVEC cells in…
There are now two ways to sign up to receive new blog content by e-mail. The original way was disabled for a few months, but is now back. This is the approach that creates a beautiful e-mail with full post content. We found a security flaw here and so we’ve removed the subscription window on…
I’ve been trying for a year now to make a nanofluidic transistor – a nanomembrane with a thin layer of metal coated in dielectric that allows for the dynamic modulation of the sieving characteristics of the chip. Beginning with the last 14 chips from wafer #1081, I coated them in ~3 nm of Ti and…
The company Protochips is making interesting microfluidic chips and systems for electron microscopy. See this page and this movie. Note their use of integrated spacers as thin as 150 nm to create a flow channel between back-to-back membrane chips. This not only relates to our work with Vincent in Ottawa, perhaps it gives us new…
PET is a very common material used in various cell culture applications. Unfortunately it’s chemical inertness makes it immune to plasma activation, and we can’t bond PDMS devices to PET. I am working with a PET films coated with Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) on one side of the film. The film, in terms of texture,…
All separations are 30 nm (diameter) gold nanoparticles in a 56 nm pore setup, with other parameters as described in my last post. Y-axis scale bar is in meters, x-axis scale is meaningless (the simulation is 1-D, and the width is added just for clarity’s sake). The membrane is at y = 0. Color corresponds…
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…