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Electrokinetic microslit experiments to analyse the charge formation at solid/liquid interfaces

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Abstract

Electrokinetic effects play an important role in microfluidics and nanofluidics. Although the related phenomena are often utilized to control fluid flow and sample transport in lab-on-a-chip devices, their dependency on the surface charges on the channel walls often remain enigmatic. This is mainly due to the lack of adequate experimental methods to analyse the electrical charging of solid/liquid interfaces of interest. To address this need, an experimental set-up—designated as microslit electrokinetic set-up (MES)—has been recently developed and applied for the investigation of charge formation processes at planar solid/liquid interfaces. The device permits to perform streaming potential and streaming current measurements across a rectangular streaming channel formed by two parallel sample carriers (20×10×3 mm3) at variable distance allowing for the determination of the surface conductivity. Utilizing the MES, charge characteristics can be determined for a wide variety of materials prepared as thin films on top of planar glass substrates. Streaming potential and streaming current data permit to investigate the mechanisms of charge formation while surface conductivity data provide information about mobile charge carriers located in different zones at the interface. The applicability of this advanced experimental approach is demonstrated with examples obtained for surfaces with different levels of complexity:

  1. 1.

    Preferential ion adsorption onto unpolar fluoropolymer (Teflon® AF) films was characterized in simple electrolyte solutions; the results were quantitatively evaluated with respect to interfacial ion concentrations.

  2. 2.

    Interrelation of charge density and conformation of grafted poly(L-glutamic acid layers) were unravelled from the determination of pH-depended variations of surface conductivity and layer thickness.

  3. 3.

    The impact of spatial confinements of surface functional groups on their acid–base behaviour was studied with self-assembled monomolecular films of alkanethiols chemisorbed on gold.

  4. 4.

    Charging of and ion mobility within poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) brushes prepared by a Langmuir–Blodgett technique were analysed at varied pH and ionic strength.

  5. 5.

    Interfacial modes of adsorbed proteins were distinguished at two polymer surfaces with varied hydrophobicity/charge density.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials Dresden, Hohe Strasse 6, Dresden, 01069, Germany

    Ralf Zimmermann, Toshihisa Osaki & Carsten Werner

  2. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, 3 Research Link, Singapore, 117602, Singapore

    Rüdiger Schweiß

  3. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, 5 King’s College Road, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S 3G8

    Carsten Werner

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  1. Ralf Zimmermann
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  2. Toshihisa Osaki
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  3. Rüdiger Schweiß
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  4. Carsten Werner
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Correspondence to Carsten Werner.

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Zimmermann, R., Osaki, T., Schweiß, R. et al. Electrokinetic microslit experiments to analyse the charge formation at solid/liquid interfaces. Microfluid Nanofluid 2, 367–379 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-006-0087-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-006-0087-6

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