Engineering Commons^™

Quantification Of Mitochondrial Membrane Potential In The Isloated Rat Lung Using R6g, Anthony Cammarata

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Mitochondrial membrane potential (Δm) plays a key role in vital mitochondrial functions, and its dissipation is a hallmark of mitochondrial dysfunction in various cell types. The objective of this study was to develop an experimental and computational approach for estimating Δm in intact rat lungs using the lipophilic fluorescent cationic dye rhodamine 6G (R6G). Rat lungs were isolated and connected to a ventilation-perfusion system. The experimental Protocol consisted of three single-pass phases: loading, wash, and uncoupling, in which the lungs were perfused with R6G-containing perfusate, fresh R6G-free perfusate, or R6G-free perfusate containing the mitochondrial uncoupler FCCP, respectively. This Protocol was …

Bioengineering Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds For Volumetric Muscle Loss, Kevin Roberts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Volumetric muscle loss overwhelms skeletal muscle’s ordinarily capable regenerative machinery, resulting in fibrosis and severe functional deficits which have defied clinical repair strategies. My work spans the design and preclinical evaluation of implants intended to drive the cell community of injured muscle toward a regenerative state, as well as the development of an understanding of the molecular responses of this cell community to biomaterial interventions. I demonstrate a new class of biomaterial by leveraging the productive capacity of sacrificial hollow fiber membrane cell culture; I show specifically that unique threads of whole extracellular matrix can be isolated by solvent degradation …

Chemical And Physical Modification Of Thiol-Ene And Epoxy-Amine Networks For Advanced Control Of Gas Transport And Flame Retardant Behavior, Vivek Vasagar

Dissertations

Crosslinked polymers are widely used due to its several advantages not limited to high mechanical strength combined with the easy processability. Despite of its popular usage, the fundamental understanding of polymer structure affecting the desired properties is still lacking. This PhD thesis is in two parts, the first part is devoted to the design and developing a basic understanding of structure and chemical composition dependencies of gas transport, whereas in the second part a fundamental relationship between structure to the fire-retardant properties is established.

Membrane based gas separation technique has attracted interest of selective removal of carbon dioxide gas from …

Developments Towards High-Flux Silica Nanosphere Substrates To Support Conforming Self-Assembled Gold Nanoparticle Monolayers For Applications In Size-Selective Filtration, Ryan Baker Vincent

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Hydrophobic thiol coated gold nanoparticles have recently been investigated for their ability to self-assemble into robust, ultra-thin, porous membranes at a liquid-vapor interface. Due to the well-ordered, hexagonal close-packed nanoparticle arrays formed during the self-assembly process, these 2-dimensional sheets have very well-defined pore structures and have been shown to span gaps of several microns under ideal conditions. While these self-assembled nanoparticle monolayers have very promising applications in the field of size-selective filtration due to their well-defined pore structure, they need to be supported by a rigid substrate with a large amount of open area. Here, tightly packed arrays of silica …

Wrinkling Of Membrane And Thin Film Under Torsion, Tingting Chen

Dissertations and Theses

Membranes and thin film structures are widely used in modern technologies. Applications include solar sails and sunshields in space missions, biological membranes and flexible circuit boards. Wrinkling of membrane or a stiff film on a soft substrate may occur in either desired or unwanted patterns. This work tries to obtain some understanding on the wrinkling phenomenon and provide guidance in avoiding wrinkling or effectively controlling the wrinkle patterns.

Many works have been published about wrinkling in the thin sheets since the 20^th century. However, there is no simple analytical way to systematically characterize the wrinkling in these studies. In …

Persulfate Oxidation-Assisted Membrane Distillation Process For Micropollutant Degradation And Membrane Fouling Control, Muhammad Bilal Asif, Zulqarnain Fida, Arbab Tufail, Jason Van Der Merwe, Frederic Leusch, Biplob K. Pramanik, William E. Price, Faisal I. Hai

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

In this study, long-term performance of a persulfate (PS)-assisted direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process was examined for the treatment of secondary treated effluent spiked with a mixture of micropollutants including three pesticides and nine pharmaceuticals. A stand-alone DCMD ('control') was also operated under identical operating conditions for comparison. Depending on the micropollutant, the stand-alone DCMD achieved 86 to >99% removal. In comparison, removal by the PS-assisted DCMD was >99% for all investigated micropollutants. This was attributed to the fact that sulfate radicals (SO4-) formed following the activation of PS at the DCMD operating temperature (i.e., 40 °C) achieved micropollutant-specific …

Performance Analysis Of A Thermal-Driven Tubular Direct Contact Membrane Distillation System, Abdellah Sharifian, Mehdi Khiadani, Ataollah Nosrati

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper examines the performance of a thermal-driven tubular direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system theoretically and experimentally. A multi-step mathematical model was developed to predict the freshwater productivity of the tubular DCMD module applicable for both small and large-scale applications by considering the changes in the operational variables along the membrane’s length. The proposed model was verified by building an experimental rig which was tested under different operational conditions. The results showed that keeping the mass flow rates in the hot and cold channels either near the end or beyond the transition range of the flows results in higher …