Author: Karl Smith
Karl is the 'separations czar' for NRG. As a Biophysics Ph.D. Candidate, Karl has the responsibility of characterizing new membranes, modeling the unique physics of nanomembrane separations, and finding ways to apply pnc-Si technology to protein purification, nanofluidic transistors, and human hemodialysis. Karl graduated from Allegheny College in 2011 with a double major in English and Physics.

Initial Nanofluidic Transistor Zetapotentials Seem Unresponsive to Applied Gate Voltage

I’ve been taking lots of zetapotential measurements with my current setup. Serendipitously, it appears that the more I use the electrodes, the more stable my zetapotential measurements become. Because the system seems well behaved now, I decided to move on to

Posted in NRG

Zetapotential of Uncharged Nanofluidic Transistor Devices

Last week Sarah and I made several standard nanofluidic transistor (NFT) stacks (3 nm Ti, 12 nm Ag over a 3-slot SiN membrane – wafer # 1024) in the cleanroom. I then measured the zetapotential of these devices at pH 7.43,

Posted in NRG

(Journal Club) Measuring the Zetapotential and Protein Translocation Behavior of Single-pore SiN

This paper (SiN paper) by Ulrich Rant et. Al. details several experiments conducted with a single pore drilled through a SiN membrane via TEM. They measure the relationship of pH vs. zetapotential for both a model protein (avidin) and their

Posted in NRG

A pH vs. Zetapotential graph for SiN membranes

The blue line reflects measurements taken with my zetapotential setup. Each data point is the average of three independent measurements of zetapotential (a new 3-slot SiN wafer 1024 chip for each measurement) and the linear fit for the pressure vs.

Posted in NRG

Zetapotential Progress

I’ve been going to considerable lengths to try and get reproducible zetapotential measurements from my streaming potential device. Zetapotential measurements are the closest we can experimentally get to measuring the surface charge of a membrane, and are important for three

Posted in NRG

Variance in Streaming Potential Measurements (Journal Club)

This paper (Variance of Streaming Potential) examines the sources of error in zetapotential measurements. Jess and Zydney both cite it in their EO papers as a source of experimental procedure – in particular this paper found that waiting for the

Posted in NRG

The New Concentration Polarization Model Turns Out To Be Difficult To Implement In Matlab

This is part three of a series of posts on constructing a mathematical model of the movement of gold through a porous membrane. In part one, I implemented William Deen’s mathematical model of the electrostatic and steric effects that contribute

Posted in NRG

Incorporating Concentration Polarization into Our Convective Sieving Model

Prior to my qualifying exam about a month ago, I put together a simple model of transport (detailed in this previous post) across a nanomembrane that incorporated electrostatics as well as terms describing both convective and diffusive transport across the

Posted in NRG

Electrostatic Effects on Convective Flux of Nanoparticles: A Mathematica/Matlab Implementation of W.M. Deen’s Model

UPDATE: I have since ported the program into Matlab. If you open the following zip document(Archive) you can run Find_Sieving_Coefficient. You can select a results file and after ~5 minutes the expected sieving coefficient for the pore distribution is spat

Posted in NRG

Stable, Reasonable, and Reproducible Zetapotential Readings for pnc-Si Remain Just Out of Reach

I’ve spent a long time in lab trying to optimize the protocol for streaming potential measurements. The slope of an applied pressure vs. streaming potential graph can give us the apparent zetapotential through the helmholtz-smolachowski equation. The apparent zetapotential is

Posted in NRG
0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop