After talking with Prahnesh, a graduate student in the Dumont Lab I obtained a protocol for a colorimetric assay used to detect the presence of detergents in solution. The assay uses phenol and concentrated sulfuric acid in the following manner:…

Endotoxins (~10-1000kDa) are structural components of bacteria (LPS is the best known) that are released from bacteria when they die.  Endotoxins cause inflammatory responses in humans and animals (infections give you a fever) and in cultured cells.  For most cell…

I’ve been growing brain endothelial cells on PET and pnc-Si membrane transwells for a variety of experiments, but mainly to measure the TEER (transendothelial electrical resistance).  TEER is used to track the integrity of cell monolayers grown on permeable supports. …

I went through and characterized each wafer by thickness and RTP. I graphed “Average Pore Size vs. Porosity” and “Average Pore Size vs. Cut-Off Pore Size” for each processing condition that had at least four representative wafers. ** Yesterday, Professor…

Here is the analysis of the wafers used in the pressurized gold separations: SC 199   Stat Result Mean Equiv Diameter 17.84 nm Median Diameter 18.30 nm Porosity 2.2% Weighted Mean Diameter 20.81 nm 90% Diameter 26.64 nm Roundness .782…

The electrical properties of 20nm and 50nm thick sputtered oxide is currently being investigated. Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) and Current-Voltage (I-V) tests are achieved by fabricating 200um-4kum diameter capacitor “dots”  using Lesker SiO2 targets and flash-evaporated aluminum (CVC). A GCA stepper is…

Over the past month, I’ve posted some results of a colorimetric assay for silicic acid.  Previous posts are here and here.  These results showed that the assay detected silicic acid after pnc-Si and PSi degraded.  However, bare silicon wafers also…

Roundness vs. Equivalent Diameter plots for five eccentric wafers: There really doesn’t seem to be a correlation between equivalent diameter and roundness. However, there does appear to be a rough downward trend in SC 016 and SC 258. Mean Roundness…

Here are the updated pore processing graphs: The data spreadsheet: pore-processing-results Supplement (added 6/16/09): Here is the Average Pore Size vs. Porosity graph with the outlying data points labeled: After making this graph, I looked at the outliers to see if…

In an attempt to minimize flow due to salt gradients, we ran an experiment in which an intentional gradient was used to set up a slight counterflow from the filtrate to the retentate.  This was accomplished by having a 55mM…