Open AccessMacrotransport analysis of effective mobility of biomolecules in periodic nano-filter polar arrays
Author(s) -
Zi-Rui Li,
Liao Ning-Bo,
Yuqing Zhou,
Wei Xue,
Moubin Liu
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
wuli xuebao
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 47
ISSN - 1000-3290
DOI - 10.7498/aps.62.218701
Subject(s) - biomolecule , materials science , polar , electric field , brownian motion , configuration entropy , anisotropy , chemical physics , nano , entropy (arrow of time) , nanotechnology , physics , statistical physics , optics , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics , composite material
Transport of anisotropic biomolecules and/or charged Brownian particles in periodic porous media is of great importance in the fields of biomedicine, water treatment, and environmental engineering etc. In this paper, we present the modeling of transport of biomolecules in periodic polar arrays based on a numerical analysis of effective mobility. Anisotropic biomolecules are transformed to point-sized Brownian particles through introduction of configurational entropy, and the effective charge and effective transport parameters are calculated using macrotransport theory. As an example, the mobility of short dsDNA fragments in a nano-polar array is calculated. It is demonstrated that when the sizes of the gaps between the nano-poles are similar to or smaller than the size of biomolecules, the configurational entropy has a significant effect on the effective velocity. Difference in configurational entropy in the confined space dominates the partitioning of the molecules. In addition, as the effect of entropic barrier decreases with the strength of external electric field, relatively low voltage is preferred in order to achieve better selectivity.