Summary: Modeling and simulation of ionic currents in three-dimensional microfluidic devices
with nanofluidic interconnects
Aveek N. Chatterjee, Donald M. Cannon Jr., Enid N. Gatimu, Jonathan V. Sweedler, Narayana R. Aluru
and Paul W. Bohn*
Department of Chemistry, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering and the Beckman Institute
for Advanced Science and Technology, 405 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA; *Author for
correspondence (E-mail: bohn@scs.uiuc.edu)
Received 5 April 2005; accepted in revised form 6 April 2005
Key words: nanofluidics, modeling, simulation, molecular gate, three-dimensional architecture, nano-
technology, water quality
Abstract
Electrokinetic fluid flow in nanocapillary array (NCA) membranes between vertically separated micro-
fluidic channels offers an attractive alternative to using mechanical action to achieve fluidic communica-
tion between different regions of lab-on-a-chip devices. By adjusting the channel diameter, a, and the
inverse Debye length, j, and applying the appropriate external potential, the nanochannel arrays, can be
made to behave like digital fluidic switches, and the movement of molecules from one side of the array to
the other side can be controlled. However, inherent differences in ionic mobility lead to non-equilibrium
ion populations on the downstream side, which, in turn, shows up through transient changes in the
microchannel conductance. Here we describe coupled calculations and experiments in which the electrical
properties of a microfluidic­nanofluidic hybrid architecture are simulated by a combination of a compact

Source: Aluru, Narayana R. - Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Collections: Engineering; Materials Science