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The Re–Wi plot for the merging flow of non-Newtonian fluids is divided into the undisturbed, inertial and elastic domains.

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.

Building an optical filtration function into a microfluidic chip is a promising way of simplifying the optical detection system of a microfluidic device. In this paper, a PDMS microfluidic chip filter that is capable of transmitting chlorophyll fluorescence and blocking interfering light in the visible wavelength range was developed for living algae detection with a smartphone. The chip was fabricated by sealing a layer of crystal violet solution in a PDMS layer on the top of the Sudan II-doped PDMS slab, which has a straight microchannel. Optimum dye concentrations and thicknesses for the crystal violet solution layer and Sudan II-doped PDMS slab were investigated and determined by spectrum measurements. It was found that the cut-on range of this integrated microfluidic chip is extended to about 625 nm and the transmittance in the chlorophyll fluorescence range (650 nm to 710 nm) is as high as 95%, when 25 mg L

Bioinspired asymmetric two-dimensional (2D) nanochannels with ionic diode behavior are highly desirable, as they can be constructed and modified easily. However, the knowledge about the rectification mechanism of the nanochannels is still very limited. In this paper, the ionic current rectification (ICR) of the 2D trapezoidal-shaped nanochannels was studied both numerically and experimentally. A multi-physics model, considering the electric field, the ion concentration field, and the flow field, was built for simulating the ion transportation inside the nanochannels. With a limited channel height, the 2D nanochannels are counter-ion selective; therefore, under an external electric field, the accumulation of co-ions takes place at one end of the nanochannels. By introducing shape asymmetry to the nanochannels, the ICR was achieved due to the asymmetric ion concentration polarization at two ends of the nanochannels under opposite electric fields. The structure of the nanochannels, the surface charge density of the nanochannel walls, and the ionic strength of the working fluids affect the ICR of the ionic diodes by changing the ion concentration polarization at two ends of the nanochannels. In the experiment, the current-voltage curves of the nanochannel arrays fabricated by assembling graphene oxide nanosheets were measured, which are in accordance with the numerical results. This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of the 2D trapezoidal-shaped ionic diodes, which may act as a guideline for the design and optimization of ionic diodes.

A conductivity-difference-based method for increasing dielectrophoretic (DEP) force for particle separation in a microfluidic chip is presented in this paper. By applying a direct-current (DC) voltage across two immiscible electrolyte solutions with a conductivity difference, an enhanced electric field gradient is generated at the liquid-liquid interface. Theoretical analysis based on equivalent circuit theory found that the gradient of the electric field squared increases with the decrease in the conductivity ratio of the two liquids (main channel to the side channel). As a result, the particle separation distance (an indicator of DEP force) increases with the decrease in the conductivity ratio, which is both numerically predicted and experimentally verified. Numerical simulations also show that the separation distance increases with the increase in the magnitude of the electric field and the decrease in the width of the orifice. The method presented in this paper is simple and advantageous for increasing DEP force without applying higher DC voltages or fabricating smaller orifices.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreaks, the utilization of medical masks plays a critical role in reducing the infected risk. However, constructing multifunctional masks to achieve simultaneously self-sterilization, reusability, and respiratory monitoring capability remains still a huge challenge. Herein, a reusable Ag micro-mesh film-based mask is proposed, which enables the capabilities of electrothermal sterilization and self-powered real-time respiratory monitoring. Highly conductive Ag micro-mesh films prepared by continuous draw spinning method demonstrate excellent electrothermal performances for thermal sterilization and serve as working electrode to fabricate triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for real-time respiratory monitoring, respectively. Under a low driving voltage of 3.0 V, the surface temperature of Ag micro-mesh film enables a quick increase to over 60 °C within 30 s, which endows thermal sterilization against

Insulator-based dielectrophoretic (iDEP) microdevices have been limited to work with Newtonian fluids. We report an experimental study of the fluid rheological effects on iDEP focusing and trapping of polystyrene particles in polyethylene oxide, xanthan gum, and polyacrylamide solutions through a constricted microchannel. Particle focusing and trapping in the mildly viscoelastic polyethylene oxide solution are slightly weaker than in the Newtonian buffer. They are, however, significantly improved in the strongly viscoelastic and shear thinning polyacrylamide solution. These observed particle focusing behaviors exhibit a similar trend with respect to electric field, consistent with a revised theoretical analysis for iDEP focusing in non-Newtonian fluids. No apparent focusing of particles is achieved in the xanthan gum solution, though the iDEP trapping can take place under a much larger electric field than the other fluids. This is attributed to the strong shear thinning-induced influences on both the electroosmotic flow and electrokinetic/dielectrophoretic motions.

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.

Vortex formation near a two-part cylinder with zeta potentials of different values but the same sign under an external DC electric field is numerically investigated in this paper. The cylinder, inserted in a straight microchannel filled with an aqueous solution, is composed of an upstream part and a downstream part. When a DC electric field is applied in the channel, under certain conditions, the vortex will form near the cylinder due to the different velocities of electroosmotic flow generated on the cylinder surface. The numerical results reveal that the larger the velocity difference of electroosmotic flow generated on the two-part cylinder and the smaller the channel width, the more conducive to vortex formation in the channel. In addition, if the zeta potential ratios of cylinder downstream part to upstream part and channel wall to cylinder upstream part are unchanged, the DC electric field strength and the zeta potential value do not affect the pattern of vortices formed in the channel. This study provides a way for vortex formation in microchannels and has the potential application in microfluidic devices.

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)

Binding behaviors of proteins are important for applications in the field of biochemistry. Though a standard assay has a favorable limit of detection (LOD), it is mainly limited to indirect observation via fluorescence labeling. We reported and demonstrated a novel label-free sensing approach based on a near-infrared (NIR) surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing chip modified with a graphene-gold surface architecture in this paper. The NIR excitation wavelength can greatly improve the sensitivity of SPR sensing derived from the wavelength modulation-based methodology. Moreover, benefiting from the excellent electro-optical properties of graphene in NIR range, the graphene-gold surface architecture was built to further improve the sensing sensitivity. Experimental results proved the superiority over most of those reported previously in terms of ultra-sensitivity (39,160 nm/RIU) and resolution (5.107 × 10

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.

Recent studies have demonstrated the strong influences of fluid rheological properties on insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) in single-constriction microchannels. However, it is yet to be understood how iDEP in non-Newtonian fluids depends on the geometry of insulating structures. We report in this work an experimental study of fluid rheological effects on streaming DEP in a post-array microchannel that presents multiple contractions and expansions. The iDEP focusing and trapping of particles in a viscoelastic polyethylene oxide solution are comparable to those in a Newtonian buffer, which is consistent with the observations in a single-constriction microchannel. Similarly, the insignificant iDEP effects in a shear thinning xanthan gum solution also agree with those in the single-constriction channel except that gel-like structures are observed to only form in the post-array microchannel under large DC electric fields. In contrast, the iDEP effects in a both viscoelastic and shear thinning polyacrylamide solution are significantly weaker than in the single-constriction channel. Moreover, instabilities occur in the electroosmotic flow and appear to be only dependent on the DC electric field. These phenomena may be associated with the dynamics of polymers as they are electrokinetically advected around and through the posts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Transport phenomena of fluids and particles through contraction and/or expansion geometries have relevance in many applications. Polymer solutions are often the transporter in these processes, giving rise to flow complexities. The separation distance between a contraction and a following expansion in microfluidic entry flow can affect the interplay between the shear and extension force dominated flow regimes, but the process is still little understood. We investigate the rheological responses of such constriction length dependent instabilities with three different polymer solutions and water in planar contraction–expansion microchannels differing only in the constriction length. The viscoelastic polyethylene oxide (PEO) solution is found to exhibit strong constriction length-dependent instabilities in both the contraction and expansion flows. Such a dependence is, however, completely absent from the flow of shear-thinning xanthan gum (XG) solution and Newtonian water. Interestingly, it is only present in the expansion flow of the both shear thinning and viscoelastic polyacrylamide (PAA) solution.

A depth-averaged numerical model is developed to understand the experimentally observed interplay of induced charge electroosmosis and electrothermal flow in an insulator-based dielectrophoresis microdevice. The experimentally measured nonlinear fluid velocity matches asymptotically the predicted velocity of the electroosmotic flow in a low-concentration buffer and that of electrothermal flow in a high-concentration buffer. This agreement is consistent with a scaling analysis.

This paper develops a numerical simulation model to research the deformable particle-particle interactions caused by dielectrophoresis (DEP) under AC electric fields. The DEP force is calculated by using Maxwell stress tensor method, and the hydrodynamic force is obtained by calculating the hydrodynamic stress tensor. Simulation results show that the DEP interactive motion will facilitate the particles forming particle chains that are parallel to the electric field, and the particles with low shear modulus present a lower x-component velocity. Also, the electric field intensity and particles radius have some effects on the DEP motions, and for different particles, smaller particles with larger electric field intensity easily reach a larger velocity. The numerical research may provide universal guidance for biological cells manipulation and assembly.

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.

Chlorophyll fluorescence-based method shows great potentials for on-site assessing the vitality of algae in treated ship's ballast water. However, there is very limited information on the mechanism of chlorophyll fluorescence in photosystem II (PSII) after the NaClO treatment. In this paper, the effects of NaClO treatments with five concentrations (0.01, 0.04, 0.08, 0.12 and 0.15 mg/L) and treating periods (6, 24 and 48 h) on the chlorophyll fluorescence kinetics and spectra of Chlorella vulgaris (C. vulgaris) and Platymonas helgolandica (P. helgolandica) were investigated. Experimental results showed that both exposure time and dose were important factors that affect the toxicity of NaClO to microalgae. Further analyses showed that the maximum photochemical quantum yield of PSII, photochemical quenching and yield decreased rapidly with the increase in NaClO concentrations in the range of 0.04 mg/L to 0.15 mg/L, suggesting that NaClO seriously inhibited PSII reaction centers of algae. In addition, the maxima value of fluorescence at excitation wavelength still appeared near 437 nm and 468 nm under NaClO stress, pointing to the pigments for fluorescence produced by algae were mainly chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b antenna. As compared to chlorophyll a, the relative fluorescence intensity of chlorophyll b decreased significantly in the all of NaClO treatments. According to the fluorescence emission spectra, treatment of NaClO resulted in a shift of the maximum peak of C. vulgaris and P. helgolandica from 685.2 nm to 681.9 nm and 685.2 nm to 680.5 within 6 h, respectively. This indicates that the structure of antenna light-absorbing pigments of PSII changed under NaClO stress. These results revealed that the chlorophyll fluorescence mechanism in PSII of damaged microalgae occurred variation, which was important for the reliable application of on-site analysis of ballast water indicator based on chlorophyll fluorescence detection.

On the microfluidic chip, the zeta potential is an important parameter dominating the direction and magnitude of the electroosmotic flow, electrophoresis and other electrokinetic transport phenomenon. However, the traditional methods for zeta potential measurement mainly work based on the indirect methods, which would introduce many errors. In this paper, a novel direct method based on AFM colloidal probe technique was developed to measure the zeta potential. Firstly, to simplify the theoretical model, the approaching speed of the colloidal probe, at which the hydrodynamic force could be neglected, was determined. Then by fitting the experimental data with the theoretical model, the zeta potential of glass in electrolyte solutions was directly calculated.

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