EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Spatial Localization of Chemical Reactions with Microfluidics
Speaker: Rustem Ismagilov
Speaker Info: University of Chicago
Brief Description:
Special Note: More current information may be available at Plan-it Purple
Abstract:

Complex chemical systems are composed of multiple chemical reactions that are maintained away from equilibrium and that interact non-linearly to give rise to new properties not present in isolated reactions. I would like to use microfluidics and microfabrication to control spatial localization of multiple chemical reactions in space and time, maintain them away from equilibrium, and control interactions among them. In this talk I will describe the first steps towards this goal: the use of multiple streams of laminar flow within a single microfluidic channel, and the use of crossings of two sets of parallel channels to localize chemical reactions. I will also describe two problems that we had to solve along the way -- lateral diffusion in laminar streams (with Abe Stroock and Howard Stone) and fluid flow through tangential channel crossings (with Wendy Zhang and Howard Stone). As a proof-of-principle experiment that shows that a pattern-forming system can be controlled with microstructures, I will describe control of Marangoni convective patterns by topographic perturbations of the heated surface over which the convection is occuring.