Additional contributions from: Nobel Symposium 162 - Microfluidics

Nanofluidic systems, with critical dimension of 10~100nm, are ideal model system for various types of nanoporous membranes. Artificially fabricated nanofluidic channels and nanopores have been successfully used for studying fundamental molecular / fluidic transport behaviors in nanoscale, yet there is much potential to take advantage of nanofluidic systems for real-world engineering applications. This seminar will showcase several recent examples of such applications my group was working on. Nanofluidic molecular separation and concentration Previously, we have demonstrated slanted nanofilter arrays and its implementation for continuous size-base protein concentration and separation. Using the nanofilter arrays, we have developed a system allowing to perform both purity and quality test for protein drugs, continuously. Not only could we perform multiple orthogonal analyses in a single device platform, but also the separation resolution and detection sensitivity match or exceed current tools used in the industry. Nanofluidics as a model ion selective membrane Ion concentration polarization is an ion transport process that occurs in the vicinity of ion selective membranes, which can be created and modeled by micro-nanofluidic systems. We have utilized this fundamental phenomenon for various applications, including biomolecule preconcentration, water purification / desalination, and even ion-specific nerve modulation. While the study of this multi-physics phenomenon has been challenging, experiments in nanofluidic systems allowed one to build a predictive, first-principle-based numerical models, with significant implications on membrane science and engineering.