Browsing by Subject "Gel electrophoresis"
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Item Gel electrophoresis of trivalent lanthanide and actinide cations(2011-12) Sekar, Srinivas; Deinert, Mark; Landsberger, SheldonChemical separation of the transuranic elements from the uranium and fission products in spent nuclear fuel is a major area of research in the nuclear engineering field. Spent nuclear fuel from light water reactors contains mainly uranium (about 96% of the total) which has 0.83% fissile 235U. Spent fuel also contains several isotopes of fissile plutonium (mainly 239Pu and 241Pu). Currently, commercialized processes such as the PUREX (Plutonium URanium EXtraction) process are effective in separating most of the Pu and U isotopes from the fission products using aqueous methods based on their chemical properties. However, spent fuel also contains an appreciable quantity of lanthanides which have similar chemical properties to the transuranic actinides and are thus very difficult to separate using existing technology. In this project, we aim to separate lanthanides from actinides using the well established process of electrophoresis. A model for ion transport in a porous medium is first developed using the Nernst-Planck equation and this model is used to approximate the behavior of an experimental electrophoretic system. The approach is based on the well established principles of capillary electrophoresis, but with a porous medium comprised of agarose gel taking the place of the traditional capillaries. We run gel electrophoresis experiments at varying parameters and use lanthanum and uranium ions to verify the theoretically predicted mobility in a practical environment.Item Investigation of the Effect of Hydrogel Pore Morphology on DNA Migration Mechanisms in Microchip Gel Electrophoresis(2014-08-20) Shi, NanMany efforts to develop advanced medical diagnostic capabilities rely on the ability to perform size-based separations of DNA and proteins. Miniaturized formats have potential to provide rapid integrated solutions, but rational development requires an improved understanding of the physics underlying separation. This dissertation majorly focuses on the DNA transport in microchip gel electrophoresis systems. We have developed a transport model that allows us to determine the interplay between the hydrogel pore size distribution, the applied electric field strength, and DNA size in determining separation performance. This fundamental understanding makes it possible to access a unique DNA transport mode, entropic trapping, that becomes dominant when the hydrogel pore size is close that of DNA coil. Further investigation of the entropic trapping phenomena, both experimentally and computationally, shows how the inherently disordered dynamics governing macromolecular transport under nanoconfined surroundings can paradoxically be precisely controlled. This capability lays a foundation for a sensitive probe of nanoscale molecular conformation, revealing previously unseen details about DNA-protein binding interactions at size scales far below the limits of conventional techniques. A key breakthrough is that our method is the first practical application of stochastic resonance in entropic trapping transport of macromolecules (previously studied, but only theoretically), yielding a new tool to ?image? nanoscale details of biomolecular conformation.