Thermodynamic properties of reactive gas mixtures

The foregoing study shows that the comparative behavior of fixed composition and chemical equilibrium, when compelled to undergo isentropic changes of state from the same initial point, depends first on the type of chemical reaction present. Chemical reactions are shown to fall into three classes, depending upon the algebraic sign of the product of the mole change and heat of reaction. The order of magnitude of the difference between the two systems depends on the magnitudes of temperature, heat of reaction, heat capacities and a fourth quantity best described as the mobility of the system.To include more general problems in which inert gases may be present, or more than a single reaction takes place, the analysis must be extended considerably.     

功能电陶瓷材料CaSrTiMnO6的晶体结构和介电性能

利用传统固相烧结法制备功能介电陶瓷材料CaSrTiMnO6(CSTM).里瓦尔德精修结果表明,该陶瓷具有单钙钛矿结构,属于pnma空间群.在CSTM陶瓷的介电谱图中,只出现了一个介电弛豫峰,本文利用混价结构机理和归一化键长理论很好地解释了这种现象.在333～453 K的温度区间内,介电常数在低频下稳定地保持在4 000左右.这种性质说明该陶瓷材料在高温低频下具有很大的实际应用潜力.     

Improving the dielectric properties of an electrowetting-on-dielectric microfluidic device with a low-pressure chemical vapor deposited Si3N4 dielectric layer

Dielectric breakdown is a common problem in a digital microfluidic system, which limits its application in chemical or biomedical applications. We propose a new fabrication of an electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) device using Si₃N₄ deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) as a dielectric layer. This material exhibits a greater relative permittivity, purity, uniformity, and biocompatibility than polymeric films. These properties also increase the breakdown voltage of a dielectric layer and increase the stability of an EWOD system when applied in biomedical research. Medium droplets with mouse embryos were manipulated in this manner. The electrical properties of the Si₃N₄ dielectric layer—breakdown voltage, refractive index, relative permittivity, and variation of contact angle with input voltage—were investigated and compared with a traditional Si₃N₄ dielectric layer deposited as a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition to confirm the potential of LPCVD Si₃N₄ applied as the dielectric layer of an EWOD digital microfluidic system.     

Dielectrophoretic capture voltage spectrum for measurement of dielectric properties and separation of cancer cells

In this paper, a new dielectrophoresis (DEP) method based on capture voltage spectrum is proposed for measuring dielectric properties of biological cells. The capture voltage spectrum can be obtained from the balance of dielectrophoretic force and Stokes drag force acting on the cell in a microfluidic device with fluid flow and strip electrodes. The method was demonstrated with the measurement of dielectric properties of human colon cancer cells (HT-29 cells). From the capture voltage spectrum, the real part of Clausius-Mossotti factor of HT-29 cells for different frequencies of applied electric field was obtained. The dielectric properties of cell interior and plasma membrane were then estimated by using single-shell dielectric model. The cell interior permittivity and conductivity were found to be insensitive to changes in the conductivity of the medium in which the cells are suspended, but the measured permittivity and conductivity of cell membrane were found to increase with the increase of medium conductivity. In addition, the measurement of capture voltage spectrum was found to be useful in providing the optimum operating conditions for separating HT-29 cells from other cells (such as red blood cells) using dielectrophoresis.     

Refinement of the theory for extracting cell dielectric properties from dielectrophoresis and electrorotation experiments

A modified theory is proposed for extracting cell dielectric properties from the peak frequency measurement of electrorotation (ER) and the crossover frequency measurement of dielectrophoresis (DEP). Current theory in the literature is based on the low frequency (DC) approximations for the equivalent cell permittivity and conductivity, which are valid when the measurements are performed in a medium with conductivity less than 1 mS/m. The present theory extracts the cell properties through optimizing an expression for the medium conductivity in terms of the peak ER, or DEP crossover, frequency according to its definition using full expressions of equivalent cell permittivity and conductivity. Various levels of approximation of the theory are proposed and discussed through a scaling analysis. The present theory can extract both membrane and interior properties from the low and the high peak ER, or DEP crossover, frequencies for any medium conductivity provided the peak ER, or DEP crossover, frequency exists. It can be reduced to the linear theory for the low peak ER and DEP crossover frequencies in the literature when the medium conductivity is less than 10 mS/m. However, we can determine the membrane capacitance and conductance via the slope and intercept, respectively, of the straight line fitting of the ER peak and DEP frequency against medium conductivity data according to the linear theory only when the intercept dominates the experimental uncertainty, which occurs when the medium conductivity is less than 1 mS/m in practice.     

The significance of the dielectric constant of a mixture

The above review of the experimental data on the dielectric constants of mixtures shows that the dielectric constant of a mixture cannot in general be calculated from the dielectric constants of the components.     

Characterizing the dielectric properties of human mesenchymal stem cells and the effects of charged elastin-like polypeptide copolymer treatment

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) have three key properties that make them desirable for stem cell therapeutics: differentiation capacity, trophic activity, and ability to self-renew. However, current separation techniques are inefficient, time consuming, expensive, and, in some cases, alter hMSCs cellular function and viability. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a technique that uses alternating current electric fields to spatially separate biological cells based on the dielectric properties of their membrane and cytoplasm. This work implements the first steps toward the development of a continuous cell sorting microfluidic device by characterizing native hMSCs dielectric signatures and comparing them to hMSCs morphologically standardized with a polymer. A quadrapole Ti-Au electrode microdevice was used to observe hMSC DEP behaviors, and quantify frequency spectra and cross-over frequency of hMSCs from 0.010–35 MHz in dextrose buffer solutions (0.030 S/m and 0.10 S/m). This combined approach included a systematic parametric study to fit a core-shell model to the DEP spectra over the entire tested frequency range, adding robustness to the analysis technique. The membrane capacitance and permittivity were found to be 2.2 pF and 2.0 in 0.030 S/m and 4.5 pF and 4.1 in 0.10 S/m, respectively. Elastin-like polypeptide (ELP-) polyethyleneimine (PEI) copolymer was used to control hMSCs morphology to spheroidal cells and aggregates. Results demonstrated that ELP-PEI treatment controlled hMSCs morphology, increased experiment reproducibility, and concurrently increased hMSCs membrane permittivity to shift the cross-over frequency above 35 MHz. Therefore, ELP-PEI treatment may serve as a tool for the eventual determination of biosurface marker-dependent DEP signatures and hMSCs purification.