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Two Examples of Ratchet Processes in Microfluidics

The ratchet effect can be exploited in many types of research, yet few researchers pay attention to it. In this thesis, I investigate two examples of such effects in microfluidic devices, under the guidance of computational simulations.
The first chapter provides a brief introduction to ratchet effects, electrophoresis, and swimming cells, topics directly related to the following chapters. The second chapter of this thesis studies the separation of charged spherical particles in various microfluidic devices. My work shows how to manipulate those particles with modified temporal asymmetric electric potentials.
The rectification of randomly swimming bacteria in microfluidic devices has been extensively studied. However, there have been few attempts to optimize such rectification devices. Mapping such motion onto a lattice Monte Carlo model may suggest some new mathematical methods, which might be useful for optimizing the similar systems. Such a mapping process is introduced in chapter four.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/37649
Date11 May 2018
CreatorsWang, Hanyang
ContributorsSlater, Gary
PublisherUniversité d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Source SetsUniversité d’Ottawa
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatapplication/pdf

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