(220c) Effect of Morphology On Optimal Separation Times In Nanocomposite Polymer Gel Electrophoresis: Diverging Annular Pore Morphology

      Experimental efforts have indicated that polymer gels embedded with nanoparticles used in gel electrophoresis, are quite an appealing technology to help improve separation of biomolecules for applications in clinical diagnostics and environmental proteomics, for example [1]. These gels have been used by scientists and engineers to achieve separation of biomacromolecules by taking advantage of their different responses to the applied electrical field, as well as their morphology, or internal structure. The changes in morphology within the gels due to the inclusion of nanoparticles offers a very appealing tuning parameter to improve separation efficiency. These nanocomposite gels can be viewed as a porous media, consisting of capillary channels of different geometries, and if a particular morphology is shown to improve separation efficiency, this morphology could be potentially implemented experimentally.

      In this presentation, a pore within the gel of annular morphology with an axially varying cross section and applied orthogonal electrical field will be analyzed using the electrokinetic-hydrodynamics (EKHD) approach to obtain effective transport parameters (i.e. effective velocity and effective diffusivity) that predict the macrotransport behavior of the system. Then, these effective parameters can be used to compute optimal separation times within the annular morphology. Furthermore, the effect of various geometrical parameters and operating parameters on the optimal separation time will be presented.

1.         Thompson, J.W., H.A. Stretz, and P.E. Arce, Preliminary Observations of the Role of Material Morphology on Protein-Electrophoretic Transport in Gold Nanocomposite Hydrogels. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2010. 49(23): p. 12104-12110.