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Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are key precursors of ozone and particulate matter, which are the two dominant air pollutants in urban environments. However, compositions and sources of VOCs in urban air aloft have rarely been reported so far. To address this matter, highly time-resolved measurements of VOCs were made by a proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS) at a 450 m platform on the Canton Tower in Guangzhou, China. A combination of in situ measurements and modeling techniques was used to characterize variations in and sources of VOCs. Five sources were identified from positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis, namely daytime mixed (e.g., biogenic emissions and secondary formation), visitor-related (e.g., human breath, cooking, and volatilization of ethanol-containing products), vehicular–industrial, regional transport, and volatile chemical product (VCP) (i.e., volatilization of personal care products), contributing on average to 21 %, 30 %, 28 %, 10 %, and 11 % of total VOC (TVOC) mixing ratios, respectively. We observe that contributions of the visitor-related source, mainly composed of ethanol, followed with the variation in visitor numbers on the tower well. The VCP-dominated source only had an average contribution of ∼5.7 ppb during the campaign, accounting for a small fraction (11 %) of TVOC mixing ratios but a large fraction (22 %) of the total OH reactivity. However, large fractions of reactive VOC species, e.g., monoterpenes (49 %), were attributed to the VCP-dominated source, indicating important contributions of VCPs to ambient concentrations of these species in urban environments. Vertical profiles of air pollutants (namely NOx, ozone, Ox, and PM2.5), measured at 5, 118, 168, and 488 m, exhibited more evident gradients at night than in the daytime owing to the stronger stability of the nocturnal boundary layer. Mixing ratios of VOC species during the nighttime generally decreased with time when the 450 m platform was located in the nocturnal residual layer and markedly increased when impacted by emissions at ground level. The results in this study demonstrated composition characteristics and sources of VOCs in urban air aloft, which could provide valuable implications in making strategies for control of VOCs and secondary air pollutants.

A shockwave signal has the characteristics of short duration and wide dynamic range, so the wireless test system needs to collect it at a continuous high sampling rate, resulting in a short node life cycle and a large amount of redundant data during the test process. Moreover, test data with confidentiality, if it is still recorded and transmitted in plaintext, will challenge information security. Therefore, a compressed and encrypted acquisition framework based on hyperchaotic compressed sensing and semi-tensor is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a new four-dimensional hyperchaotic system is used to generate a compressed sensing measurement matrix to improve the encryption and anti-noise performance. Secondly, for saving memory space and improving computing efficiency, the semi-tensor product is introduced to reduce the dimension of the measurement matrix exponentially. The experimental results show that the proposed framework can realize the compressed and encrypted acquisition of transient signals with small memory space and low computational complexity. And the acquisition results can be directly transmitted to meet the requirements of real-time wireless transmission bandwidth and information security.

A novel microfluidic method of counting the number of particles while they are separated by a localized DC-dielectrophoresis force was presented. Liquid flow from a wide microchannel forces the to-be-detected particles to pass over a small orifice on a side wall of the sample input channel. A direct current (DC) voltage applied across the small orifice and a strong electric field gradient is generated at the corners of the orifice for dielectrophoretic particle separation. Particle counting is achieved by detecting the electric current change caused by the being-separated particle near the sensing orifice. In this way, particles can be separate and in situ counted at the same time. Numerical simulations show that particle separation is achieved at the edge of the sensing orifice where the strength of the electric field gradient is the largest. Separation and counting of polystyrene particles of two and three different sizes with 1 μm resolution were demonstrated experimentally.

Insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) exploits the electric field gradients formed around insulating structures to manipulate particles for diverse microfluidic applications. Compared to the traditional electrode-based dielectrophoresis, iDEP microdevices have the advantages of easy fabrication, free of water electrolysis, and robust structure, etc. However, the presence of in-channel insulators may cause thermal effects because of the locally amplified Joule heating of the fluid. The resulting electrothermal flow circulations are exploited in this work to trap and concentrate nanoscale particles (of 100 nm diameter and less) in a ratchet-based iDEP microdevice. Such Joule heating-enabled electrothermal enrichment of nanoparticles are found to grow with the increase of alternating current or direct current electric field. It also becomes more effective for larger particles and in a microchannel with symmetric ratchets. Moreover, a depth-averaged numerical model is developed to understand and simulate the various parametric effects, which is found to predict the experimental observations with a good agreement.

In framework of heavy-diquark$-$light-quark endowed with heavy-pair binding, we explore excited baryons $QQ^{\prime}q$ containing two heavy quarks ($QQ^{\prime}=cc,bb,bc$) by combining the method of Regge trajectory with the perturbative correction due to the heavy-pair interaction in baryons. Two Regge relations, one linear and the other nonlinear, are constructed semi-classically in the QCD string picture, and a mass scaling relation based on the heavy diquark-heavy antiquark symmetry are employed between the doubly heavy baryons and heavy mesons. We employ the ground-state mass estimates compatible with the observed doubly charmed baryon $\Xi_{cc}$ and spectra of the heavy quarkonia to determine the trajectory parameters and the binding energies of the heavy pair, and thereby compute the low-lying masses of the excited baryons $\Xi_{QQ^{\prime}}$ and $\Omega_{QQ^{\prime}}$ up to 2S and 1P excitations of the light quark and heavy diquark. The level spacings of heavy diquark excitations are found to be smaller generally than that of the light-quark excitations, in according with the nature of adiabatic expansion between the heavy and light-quark dynamics., Comment: 42 pages, 8 figures, Created by Revtex4; re-arranged the sections VI and VII into the sections II to IV. A short discussion of the searching candidate channel(decay modes) added. Accepted by Euro. Phys. J. C (upon printing)

Separations of particles and cells are indispensable in many microfluidic systems and have numerous applications in chemistry and biomedicine. The interface of aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) can act as a liquid filter. Under electric field stimuli, the selective transfer of targets across the liquid-liquid interface are expected for particles and cells separation.The separations of particles and cells based on ATPS electrophoresis in a microfluidic chip were investigated. A systematical study of the mechanism of ATPS electrophoresis was performed first by employing polystyrene (PS) particles. Subsequently, the separations of particles and microalgae cells were demonstrated.The electrophoretic transfer of particles across the interface of ATPS is determined by multi-parameters, including the strength of electric pulse, particle size, zeta potential, and hydrophobicity of the particle. The continuous separations of particles/cells can be achieved through the controllable transfer of target particles/cells across the interface under electric pulses in a microfluidic chip. By simply turning the magnitude of the applied electric pulse, the technique is suitable for different purposes, for example, the separations of particles and cells, purification of cells, and viability identification of cells. This tunable separation approach opens opportunities in multidimensional particle and cell sorting for the fields of seed selection of microorganisms, environmental assessment, and biomedical research.

Discharge mode is an important parameter for ozone synthesis by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). Currently, it is still challenging to stably generate glow discharge with oxygen at atmospheric pressure. In this paper, a DBD reactor with a layer of silver placed between the electrode and the dielectric layer (SL-DBD) was developed. Experimental results show that both streamer and glow corona discharge were stably generated under sinusoidal excitation with a 0.5 mm discharge gap in a parallel-plate DBD, due to the increased electric field strength in the discharge gap by the silver layer. It was also found that, in the SL-DBD reactor, glow corona discharge enhances the discharge strength by 50 times. The spectral peak of O at 777 nm in SL-DBD is increased to 28,800, compared with 18,389 in a reactor with a streamer only. The SL-DBD reactor produces ozone with a concentration of as high as 150 g/m3 and shows good stability in an 8 h durability test.

This work numerically investigated the translational velocity of a negatively charged oil droplet in the water near a negatively charged solid surface under a DC electric field. The equilibrium separation distance between the charged oil droplet and the charged solid surface is calculated under different parameters and the translational motion of the droplet near the solid surface is simulated via a three-dimensional mathematical model. The results indicate that the velocity of the droplet is higher under a larger zeta potential of the solid surface and a smaller zeta potential of the droplet. When the absolute value of the negative zeta potential of the droplet is larger than that of the solid surface, the droplet will move in opposite direction of the electric field. It is also found that the droplet translational velocity increases with the decrease of the separation distance between the oil droplet and the solid surface.

A novel microfluidic method of counting the number of particles while they are separated by a localized DC-dielectrophoresis force was presented. Liquid flow from a wide microchannel forces the to-be-detected particles to pass over a small orifice on a side wall of the sample input channel. A direct current (DC) voltage applied across the small orifice and a strong electric field gradient is generated at the corners of the orifice for dielectrophoretic particle separation. Particle counting is achieved by detecting the electric current change caused by the being-separated particle near the sensing orifice. In this way, particles can be separate and

Hypothesis The shape of the liquid film (SLF) between a glass slide and an oil droplet immersed in an aqueous solution is influenced by the direct current (DC) electric field. The liquid film, consisting of the central film region and the meniscus film region, is formed between a floating oil droplet and a glass slide overhead. Experiments The SLF was experimentally studied in aqueous solutions of different ionic concentrations and pH values. After the DC electric fields were applied along the glass slide in horizontal direction, the diameter of central film and the thickness of meniscus film were measured by the interference method with an optical microscope. Findings The diameter of the central film decreases with the increase in the applied electric fields and declines at higher pH values while increases when the ionic concentration increases. The meniscus film becomes thicker with the increase in applied electric fields and is thicker in pH = 11 solution and thinner in pH = 3 and 1 mM NaCl solution. This is the first study of dynamic thin liquid film under DC electric field, which may be attributed to the balance of dielectrophoretic (DEP) force, colloidal force and the deformable characteristic of the oil droplet.

Zeta potential of PDMS-liquid interface is an important parameter for generating electroosmotic flow in a PDMS microchannel. In this paper, the zeta potentials of a PDMS slab in contacting with electrolyte solutions were evaluated with an atomic force microscope (AFM). As a colloidal probe of the AFM approaches to the surface of a PDMS slab in an electrolyte solution, a force curve is obtained and used to calculate the zeta potential of the PDMS. The effects of the plasma treating time and the aging of the electrolyte solutions on the zeta potential of PDMS surfaces were examined. The experimental results show that the air plasma treating time does not change the zeta potential of PDMS appreciably. Furthermore, the decreased zeta potential of a plasma-treated PDMS in an electrolyte solution is due to liquid aging, not the PDMS itself. Such characteristics probed by AFM provide new understanding of the surface charges of PDMS in electrolyte solutions.

Surfactants are often added to particle suspensions in the flow of Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluids for the purpose of reducing particle-particle aggregation and particle-wall adhesion. However, the impact on the flow behavior of such surfactant additions is often overlooked. We experimentally investigate the effect of the addition of a frequently used neutral surfactant, Tween 20, at the concentration pertaining to microfluidic applications on the entry flow of water and three common polymer solutions through a planar cavity microchannel. We find that the addition of Tween 20 has no significant influence on the shear viscosity or extensional flow of Newtonian water and Boger polyethylene oxide solution. However, such a surfactant addition reduces both the shear viscosity and shear-thinning behavior of xanthan gum and polyacrylamide solutions that each exhibit a strong shear-thinning effect. It also stabilizes the cavity flow and delays the onset of flow instability in both cases. The findings of this work can directly benefit microfluidic applications of particle and cell manipulation in Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids.

A numerical study on the electrokinetic motion of a charged oil droplet near a charged air–water interface is presented in this paper. First, the separation distance between the oil droplet and the air–water interface is calculated, and then the electrokinetic velocity of the droplet is simulated utilizing a three-dimensional numerical model under different applied electric fields, droplet’s radii, ionic concentrations, zeta potentials of the oil–water interface, and zeta potentials of the air–water interface. The numerical results indicate that a negatively charged oil droplet near a negatively charged air–water interface moves in opposite direction of the direct current electric field and has larger velocity under higher electric field strength, droplet’s radius, ionic concentration, and absolute values of the two interface zeta potentials.

The 14-year trends of surface ozone were examined using observations from 12 urban sites and 4 regional sites over the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China over the 2006–2019 period. Surface ozone exhibits upward trends in the range of 0.28–1.02 ppb yr−1 at urban sites and mixed trends in the range of −0.29 – 0.21 ppb yr−1 at regional sites. Meanwhile, surface Ox (Ox = O3+NO2) mixing ratios exhibit downward trends at 9 urban sites and 3 regional sites in the range of −0.01 to −0.54 ppb yr−1, revealing that the ozone rise at urban sites is predominantly attributed to the reduced titration effect by nitric oxide (NO). The further decline of surface NO2 mixing ratios could drive the decreases in Ox mixing ratios and the increases in ozone mixing ratios at urban sites. In addition, surface Ox concentrations show a good correlation with aerosol concentrations, implying the dominant contributions of secondary production to aerosol and the consistent control strategies of ozone and aerosol pollution in PRD. For the abatement of ozone pollution, our results highlight the synergistic control of key precursors including nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds to counteract the reduced NO titration effect by inhibiting the photochemical production of ozone. At last, we also highlight the importance of establishing more regional sites in comprehensively assessing spatiotemporal changes in surface air pollutants in China.

Electrokinetic movement of spherical polystyrene particles at different liquid-fluid interfaces was experimentally investigated in this paper. A novel method was developed to place the particles rightly at the interfaces formed in a large plastic container. The velocity was measured by an optical microscope. The experimental results show that the particles (3, 5 and 10 μm in diameter) at the water-air interface, water-dodecane interface and NaCl solution-air interface move in the opposite direction of the applied electric field. The magnitude of the particles’ velocity increases linearly with the increase in the applied electric field. Moreover, for particles of the same size, the electrokinetic velocity at the liquid-fluid interfaces is larger than particles’ electrophoretic velocity in the bulk liquid phase. Under the same electric field, however, the electrokinetic velocity of smaller particles at the liquid-fluid interfaces is larger than that of larger particles. Such results are attributed to the surface charges at the liquid-fluid interface and the particle-liquid interface.

Enrichment of colloidal particles in continuous flow has not only numerous applications but also poses a great challenge in controlling physical forces that are required for achieving particle enrichment. Here, we for the first time experimentally demonstrate the electrokinetically-driven continuous-flow enrichment of colloidal particles with Joule heating induced temperature gradient focusing (TGF) in a microfluidic convergent-divergent structure. We consider four mechanisms of particle transport, i.e., advection due to electroosmosis, electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis and, and further clarify their roles in the particle enrichment. It is experimentally determined and numerically verified that the particle thermophoresis plays dominant roles in enrichment of all particle sizes considered in this study and the combined effect of electroosmosis-induced advection and electrophoresis is mainly to transport particles to the zone of enrichment. Specifically, the enrichment of particles is achieved with combined DC and AC voltages rather than a sole DC or AC voltage. A numerical model is formulated with consideration of the abovementioned four mechanisms, and the model can rationalize the experimental observations. Particularly, our analysis of numerical and experimental results indicates that thermophoresis which is usually an overlooked mechanism of material transport is crucial for the successful electrokinetic enrichment of particles with Joule heating induced TGF. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version

The separation of particles and cells in a uniform mixture has been extensively studied as a necessity in many chemical and biomedical engineering and research fields. This work demonstrates a continuous charge-based separation of fluorescent and plain spherical polystyrene particles with comparable sizes in a ψ-shaped microchannel via the wall-induced electrical lift. The effects of both the direct current electric field in the main-branch and the electric field ratio in between the inlet branches for sheath fluid and particle mixture are investigated on this electrokinetic particle separation. A Lagrangian tracking method based theoretical model is also developed to understand the particle transport in the microchannel and simulate the parametric effects on particle separation. Moreover, the demonstrated charge-based separation is applied to a mixture of yeast cells and polystyrene particles with similar sizes. Good separation efficiency and purity are achieved for both the cells and the particles.

A novel method of sheathless particle focusing by induced charge electrokinetic flow in a microchannel is presented in this paper. By placing a pair of metal plates on the opposite walls of the channel and applying an electrical field, particle focusing is achieved due to the two pairs of vortex that constrain the flow of the particle solution. As an example, the trajectories of particles under different electrical fields with only one metal plate on one side channel wall were numerically simulated and experimentally validated. Other flow focusing effects, such as the focused width ratio (focused width/channel width) and length ratio (focused length/half-length of metal plate) of the sample solution, were also numerically studied. The results show that the particle firstly passes through the gaps between the upstream vortices and the channel walls. Afterwards, the particle is focused to pass through the gap between the two downstream vortices that determine the focused particle position. Numerical simulations show that the focused particle stream becomes thin with the increases in the applied electrical field and the length of the metal plates. As regards to the focused length ratio of the focused stream, however, it slightly increases with the increase in the applied electrical field and almost keeps constant with the increase in the length of the metal plate. The size of the focused sample solution, therefore, can be easily adjusted by controlling the applied electrical field and the sizes of the metal plates.

Electrospun nanofibrous mats have been widely used as substrate to develop novel membranes for forward osmosis (FO) application due to its ultralow structure parameter (S). However, their large pore sizes usually hinder the formation of satisfied active layer. In this work, a novel composite FO membrane was designed and prepared with a carbon nanotubes (CNTs) interlayer between the dense polyamide (PA) layer and electrospun porous polyacrylonitrile (PAN) support layer. The presence of CNT interlayer minified the pore size of the substrate to provide a better platform for PA layer growth which inhibited the diffusion of the draw solute, thus keeping a stable osmosis pressure gradient on both side of the thin-film composite (TFC) membrane. The results revealed that the optimized FO membrane with CNTs interlayer exhibited water flux of 83.55% higher and reverse salt flux of 75.58% lower than the unmodified membrane in the active layer facing draw solution (AL-DS) mode. Such better overall FO performance suggested that the addition of CNTs interlayer would offer a promising avenue to prepare high-performance electrospinning-based FO membrane for practical application.

Traditionally, a resistive pulse sensor (also known as Coulter counter) works by letting a particle pass through a small orifice in an electrolyte solution. The detection sensitivity mainly relies on the volume ratio of the particle to the orifice. This paper presents a novel resistive pulse sensor which has a sensing orifice located on the side wall of a microchannel. In this way, the sensor can detect and count particles (or cells) without requiring particles (or cells) passing through the sensing gate. An equation was derived to relate the magnitudes of the detected signals and the electrical resistances. Results show that the magnitudes of the detected signals can be increased by applying voltages from more than one voltage input channels simultaneously. Under the same conditions, the magnitudes of the detected signals become larger when the diameters of particles are larger. Higher detection sensitivity can be obtained simply by increasing either the magnitudes of the applied voltages or the number of the voltage input channels, or reducing the opening of the side sensing gate to a size that is even smaller than the diameter of the particle. Due to the high detection sensitivity, detection of 1 μm particles by a relatively large sensing gate of 5 × 10 × 10 μm (width × length × height) was successfully demonstrated with a signal to noise ratio (S/N) of approximately 3. This sensor was also applied to detect and count human red blood cells and lymphocyte cells. Results show that this method can clearly distinguish the cells with different sizes based on the pre-determined-thresholds. Because this sensor does not require cells to pass through the sensing gate, the channel clogging problem can be avoided. More importantly, the detection sensitivity can be tuned by applying different voltages without fabricating a smaller sensing gate.

Previous studies have reported a lateral migration in particle electrophoresis through a straight rectangular microchannel. This phenomenon arises from the inherent wall-induced electrical lift that can be exploited to focus and separate particles for microfluidic applications. Such a dielectrophoretic-like force has been recently found to vary with the buffer concentration. We demonstrate in this work that the particle zeta potential also has a significant effect on the wall-induced electrical lift. We perform an experimental study of the lateral migration of equal-sized polystyrene particles with varying surface charges under identical electrokinetic flow conditions. Surprisingly, an enhanced focusing is observed for particles with a faster electrokinetic motion, which indicates a substantially larger electrical lift for particles with a smaller zeta potential. We speculate this phenomenon may be correlated with the particle surface conduction that is a strong function of particle and fluid properties.

The electrokinetic motion of a negatively charged oil droplet attached to the negatively charged water-air interface from below is numerically studied for the first time by a three-dimensional numerical model in this paper. The effects of the mobile water-air interface and the mobile water-oil interface on the electrokinetic motion of the attached oil droplet are investigated and discussed in terms of the zeta potentials at the water-air interface and the oil droplet surface, the applied electric field, the dynamic viscosity ratio of oil to water, and the droplet radius. The results show that the negatively charged oil droplet attached to the negatively charged water-air interface from below moves in the opposite direction to that of the external electric field, and its moving velocity increases with the increase of the electric field strength, the magnitudes of the zeta potentials at both the water-air interface and the water-oil interface, and the droplet size, as well as the dynamic viscosity ratio of oil to water.

A microfluidic lab-on-chip device was developed to automatically and selectively manipulate target cells at the single cell level. The device is composed of a microfluidic chip, mini solenoid valves with negative-pressurized soft tubes, and a LabView®-based data acquisition device. Once a target cell passes the resistive pulse sensing gate of the microfluidic chip, the solenoid valves are automatically actuated and open the negative-pressurized tubes placed at the ends of the collecting channels. As a result, the cell is transported to that collecting well. Numerical simulation shows that a 0.14 mm3 volume change of the soft tube can result in a 1.58 mm/s moving velocity of the sample solution. Experiments with single polystyrene particles and cancer cells samples were carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. Selectively manipulating a certain size of particles from a mixture solution was also achieved. Due to the very high pressure-driven flow switching, as many as 300 target cells per minute can be isolated from the sample solution and thus is particularly suitable for manipulating very rare target cells. The device is simple, automatic, and label-free and particularly suitable for isolating single cells off the chip one by one for downstream analysis.

Recently there has been a more focus on the development of an efficient technique for detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), due to their significance in prognosis and therapy of metastatic cancer. However, it remains a challenge because of the low count of CTCs in the blood. Herein, a rapid and high-sensitivity approach for CTCs detection using an integrated microfluidic system, consisting of a deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) isolating structure, an automatic purifying device with CD45-labeled immunomagnetic beads and a capturing platform coated with rat-tail collagen was reported. We observed high capture rate of 90%, purity of about 50% and viability of more than 90% at the high throughput of 1 mL/min by capturing green fluorescent protein (GFP)-positive cells from blood. Further capturing of CTCs from metastatic cancers patients revealed a positive capture rate of 83.3%. Furthermore, our device was compared with CellSearch system via parallel analysis of 30 cancer patients, to find no significant difference between the capture efficiency of both methods. However, our device displayed advantage in terms of time, sample volume and cost for analysis. Thus, our integrated device with sterile environment and convenient use will be a promising platform for CTCs detection with potential clinical application.

Objective To investigate the feasibility and efficacy of sight-guided percutaneous unilateral translaminar facet screw fixation (TLFSF) with interbody fusion for treatment of lower lumbar vertebra diseases. Methods Twenty-nine adult patients with lower lumbar disease underwent sight-guided percutaneous unilateral TLFSF combined with microsurgical spinal decompression, discectomy, and interbody fusion from June 2007 to June 2008. All 29 patients had low back pain caused by lumbar disc degeneration (20 cases), in situ recurrent lumbar disc herniation (2), primary diskitis (1), lumbar disc herniation with spinal stenosis (3), and first-degree lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis (3). Twenty-three cases had lesions at L4,5; three at L5S1, one at L3,4, L4,5, and two at L4,5, L5S1. Results No patient experienced significant postoperative complications. The mean incision length was 4.48 ± 0.55 cm; operative time 1.34 ± 0.22 h; intraoperative blood loss 280 ± 175 mL; and postoperative drainage volume 165 ± 85 mL. Screw position results: type I, 21 cases (23 segments); type II, 7 cases (8 segments); and type III, 1 case (1 segment). Twenty-eight patients were followed up for 24–60 months (average, 47.5 months). Interbody fusion rate was 93.5%). Postoperative intervertebral height recovered significantly; however, loss of intervertebral height oc urred during follow-up. Conclusion Sight-guided percutaneous unilateral TLFSF with interbody fusion for treatment of lower lumbar disease is simple and minimally invasive, with good screw accuracy and security, high fusion rate, and good efficacy. However, specific surgical indications must be strictly followed.

This paper reports a novel and very simple method for measuring the zeta potential of electrolyte solution–air interface. When a measuring electrode contacts the electrolyte solution–air interface, an electrical current will be generated due to the potential difference between the electrode–air surface and the electrolyte solution–air interface. The amplitude of the measured electric signal is linearly proportional to this potential difference; and depends only on the zeta potential at the electrolyte solution–air interface, regardless of the types and concentrations of the electrolyte. A correlation between the zeta potential and the measured voltage signal is obtained based on the experimental data. Using this equation, the zeta potential of any electrolyte solution–air interface can be evaluated quickly and easily by inserting an electrode through the electrolyte solution–air interface and measuring the electrical signal amplitude. This method was verified by comparing the obtained results of NaCl, MgCl2 and CaCl2 solutions of different pH values and concentrations with the zeta potential data reported in the published journal papers.

Electroosmotic flow is the transport method of choice in microfluidic devices over traditional pressure-driven flow. To date, however, studies on electroosmotic flow have been almost entirely limited to inside microchannels. This work presents the first experimental study of Joule heating effects on electroosmotic fluid entry from the inlet reservoir (i.e., the well that supplies fluids and samples) to the microchannel in a polymer-based microfluidic chip. Electrothermal fluid circulations are observed at the reservoir-microchannel junction, which grow in size and strength with the increasing alternating current to direct current voltage ratio. Moreover, a 2D depth-averaged numerical model is developed to understand the effects of Joule heating on fluid temperature and flow fields in electrokinetic microfluidic chips. This model overcomes the problems encountered in previous unrealistic 2D and costly 3D models, and is able to predict the observed electroosmotic entry flow patterns with a good agreement.

Space radiation brings uneven damages to cells. The detection of the distribution of cell damage plays a very important role in radiation medicine and the related research. In this paper, a new hand-held microfluidic flow cytometer was developed to evaluate the degree of radiation damage of cells. The device we propose overcomes the shortcomings (e.g., large volume and high cost) of commercial flow cytometers and can evaluate the radiation damage of cells accurately and quickly with potential for onsite applications. The distribution of radiation-damaged cells is analyzed by a simultaneous detection of immunofluorescence intensity of γ-H2AX and resistance pulse sensor (RPS) signal. The γ-H2AX fluorescence intensity provides information of the degree of radiation damage in cells. The ratio of the number of cells with γ-H2AX fluorescence signals to the total numbers of cells detected by RPS indicates the percentage of the cells that are damaged by radiation. The comparison experiment between the developed hand-held microfluidic flow cytometer and a commercial confocal microscope indicates a consistent and comparable detection performance.

Laboratory weight-loss measurements, electrochemical tests and SEM techniques were used to study the corrosive behaviour of electrolysed ballast water on marine carbon steel. Experimental results s...

The deformation and interaction of a droplet pair in an electric field determine the success of droplet coalescence. Electric intensity and initial droplet separation are crucial parameters in this process. In this work, a combined theoretical and numerical analysis is performed to study the electrohydrodynamics of confined droplet pairs in a rectangular microchannel under ac electric fields. We develop a theoretical model to predict the relationship between critical electric intensity and droplet separation. A geometrical model relating the initial droplet separation to the cone angle is also established to determine the critical separation for partial coalescence. These models are validated by comparisons with existing experimental observations. According to the initial separation and electric intensity, five regimes of droplet interactions are classified by direct numerical simulations, namely noncoalescence, coalescence, partial coalescence, ejection after coalescence, and ejection with partial coalescence. According to their controlling mechanisms, the five regimes are distinguished by three well-defined boundaries. The detailed dynamics of the partial coalescence phenomenon is resolved when the droplet separation exceeds the critical value. A dynamic liquid bridge between the droplets is sustained by the competition between surface tension and electric stress. The dynamics of ejected microjets at the exterior ends are also addressed to showtheir responses to the oscillating electric field. The full understanding of the droplet dynamics under electric fields can be used to predict the droplet fusion behaviors and thus to facilitate the design of droplet-based microfluidic devices.

In the literature, conventional electrokinetics is widely used as a principle of operating nanofluidic devices. Different from the conventional electrokinetics involving nonpolarizable solid surfaces with fixed surface charge, induced-charge electrokinetic (ICEK) phenomena deal with polarizable surfaces with the ability of surface charge modulation through electric polarization under external electric fields. Because of several advantages, ICEK phenomena have drawn a great deal of attention in microfluidic community. Herein, we propose the first effort of extending the ICEK phenomena from microfluidics to nanofluidics. In particular, we report a numerical model for the ICEK phenomena in a tapered nanochannel with conducting (ideally polarizable) walls. It is shown that due to the broken geometric symmetry of the nanochannel, induced-charge electroosmotic flow inside the nanochannel exhibits a flow rectification such that electrolyte solution always flows from the narrow end of the nanochannel to the wide end for either a forward electric bias (electric field from the narrow to wide ends) or a reverse electric bias (electric field from the wide to narrow ends). In addition, we demonstrate that the ion selectivity of such tapered conducting nanochannel can be actively tuned to be cation-selective with a forward bias and anion-selective with a reverse bias. Promisingly, conducting nanochannels with broken geometric symmetry could be potentially used for constructing nanofluidic pumps with the unidirectional pumping capacity and ion selectors with the tuneable ionic selection. Published version

Electrokinetic flow, due to a nearly plug-like velocity profile, is the preferred mode for transport of fluids (by electroosmosis) and species (by electrophoresis if charged) in microfluidic devices. Thus far there have been numerous studies on electrokinetic flow within a variety of microchannel structures. However, the fluid and species behaviors at the interface of the inlet reservoir (i.e., the well that supplies the fluid and species) and microchannel are still largely unexplored. This work presents a fundamental investigation of the induced charge effects on electrokinetic entry flow due to the polarization of dielectric corners at the inlet reservoir-microchannel junction. We use small tracing particles suspended in a low ionic concentration fluid to visualize the electrokinetic flow pattern in the absence of Joule heating effects. Particles are found to get trapped and concentrated inside a pair of counter-rotating fluid circulations near the corners of the channel entrance. We also develop a depth-averaged numerical model to understand the induced charge on the corner surfaces and simulate the resultant induced charge electroosmosis (ICEO) in the horizontal plane of the microchannel. The particle streaklines predicted from this model are compared with the experimental images of tracing particles, which shows a significantly better agreement than those from a regular two-dimensional model. This study indicates the strong influences of the top/bottom walls on ICEO in shallow microchannels, which have been neglected in previous two-dimensional models. Published version

Effect of induced surface charge of metal particles on particle sizing by Resistive Pulse Sensing (RPS) technique is reported in this paper. The relationship between the magnitude of the RPS signal and the applied voltage was experimentally studied with 5 μm polystyrene particles and 5 μm magnetic particles in a microfluidic chip. It is shown that the magnitude of RPS signal of the magnetic particles is larger than that of the polystyrene particle under the same measuring voltage. This may be understood by the induced thicker electrical double layer (EDL) around the magnetic particles. This effect is important and should be considered when sizing metal particles and other highly-polarizable particles by using the RPS technique.