As discussed in a previous post “Clearance, Kt/V, and Concentration…”, we will use the Kt/V metric to measure the effectiveness of dialysis. There are other methods that are used: one of these is the Urea Reduction Ratio, URR.  URR is…

Jirchai summarized his data in this table … A question raised by a reviewer of our PNAS submission – and one that we’ve had for a long time – is what is the efficiency of the pump. The electrical power…

Dialysis Rate: 10 mL/min, Péclet Number: 1, Membrane Width: 700 µm, Channels per chip: 17 Péclet number Pe ∝ H Pe ∝ 1/L Pressure Drop, P P ∝ 1/H3 P ∝ L

When we submitted the EO paper way back one of the reviewers made the following comment … What is the “head pressure” P_max, i.e. the maximum back pressure that would stop the pump? For any linear electrokinetic phenomenon such as…

The urea assay is straight forward. 6 wells are filled with 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 nmol of the urea standard (50 nL). Each well is activated with 50 nL of the reaction mix. Reaction Mix Sample control…

In my previous post of Morphology evolution in pnc-Si membrane (2), see https://trace-bmps.org/datablog/?p=14769&preview=true , I showed that membranes (30SiN-25Si-30SiN) annealed at 700C show us an intermediate morphology in the pnc-Si membrane. I did some further investigation in the past week…

On Monday I presented our progress on the hemodialysis project for the Coulter Foundation. They seemed very pleased with our progress and impressed with our team. Its a tough crowd and for the first time, I sensed they had confidence…

This is the third set of studies to assess the hemocompatibility of pncSi. It aims towards a quantitative analysis of the formation of the complement protein C3a in the blood upon interaction with pncSi surfaces. Biological Motivation: Complement proteins help…

See Microfluidic Mold Making for instructions. I have assembled 3 more Barrett Chamber/ SC114 pnc-Si microfluidic devices this week. Currently, there are 2 Barrett chambers remaining and the mold is missing. The mask to make the mold still exists, however,…

Barrett Chamber Flow Visualization For my lab rotation here, I was tasked with visualizing the flow of blood/blood-like objects across the 1st generation Barrett chambers. The design of the chamber is seen below. Some key characteristics are that the chamber…