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Self‐Alignment of Beads and Cell Trapping in Precipitate Tubes
Author(s) -
Batista Bruno C.,
Cruz Patrick,
Steinbock Oliver
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chemphyschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.016
H-Index - 140
eISSN - 1439-7641
pISSN - 1439-4235
DOI - 10.1002/cphc.201500368
Subject(s) - mesoscopic physics , agarose , trapping , microfluidics , fluorescence , polymer , adhesion , bead , nanotechnology , chemical physics , materials science , dynamics (music) , confined space , chemistry , chemical engineering , biophysics , optics , composite material , physics , chromatography , condensed matter physics , ecology , engineering , acoustics , biology , organic chemistry
Propagating reaction fronts allow the formation of materials in self‐sustained, steep concentration gradients, which would otherwise rapidly decay. These conditions can result in macroscopic, noncrystallographic structures, such as tubes with large aspect ratios. For hollow silica/Zn(OH) 2 tubes, we report the inclusion of diverse mesoscopic building blocks ranging from polymer beads to biological cells. For agarose beads, we observe spontaneous alignment along vertical tracks; the nearly periodic spacing of the beads along these tracks follows a log‐normal distribution. We interpret this patterning in terms of hydrodynamic recruitment and discuss similarities to the adhesion dynamics of leukocytes in blood vessels. For diatoms and other cells, we observe novel surface textures, and yeast tagged with a green fluorescent protein shows strong fluorescence activity after trapping. The inclusion of these guest units should improve the possibilities for the application of these tubes in microfluidics and biotechnology.