Applications:
· Quickly determine presence of contaminants in colloidal suspensions using microfluidic device
· Microfluidic systems
· Inkjet printers
Advantages:
· Rapid and versatile method
· Easy to implement
· Simple and inexpensive set-up
· Determines concentrations of contaminants currently not measurable by existing techniques
Key Words
Microfluidic device, colloidal suspensions, contamination, fluid mechanics, concentration, assay
Related Publications
Sauret, A., Barney, E.C., Perro, A., Villermaux, E., Stone, H.A., and Dressaire, E. Clogging by sieving in microchannels: application to the detection of contaminants in colloidal suspensions. Applied Physics Letters, 2014. 105(7): 074101-074105.
Inventors
Emilie Dressaire, Ph.D., Alban Sauret, Ph.D., and Howard A. Stone, Ph.D.
Faculty Inventor
Howard A. Stone, Donald R. Dixon and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Chair
Howard Stone's research interests are in fluid dynamics, especially as they arise in research and applications in transport phenomena at the interface of engineering, chemistry, physics, biology and applied mathematics. His research group has developed original research directions in the area of complex fluids and microfluidics including studies and applications involving bubbles and droplets, red blood cells, bacteria, chemical kinetics, etc. Many of the studies involve experiments, theory and numerical simulations. For example, his research group made fundamental contributions to droplet microfluidics and to microfluidic flows involving narrow regions where reaction-diffusion processes are localized. In addition, his group has made various contributions to flow processes involving foams. Also, in biologically inspired areas, his research group identified conditions where fluid flow causes surface-attached biofilms to form three-dimensional filaments inside the flow.
Professor Stone is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He joined the faculty at Princeton University in 2009. In 2008, Stone was the winner of the inaugural Batchelor Prize sponsored by the Journal of Fluid Mechanics for the breadth and depth of his research over a 10-year period (1998-2007) and for his widely acknowledged leadership in fluid mechanics. Stone completed his undergraduate studies at University of California at Davis and earned his Ph.D. at Caltech. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1989 after spending one year as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University. In 2000, Stone was named a Harvard College Professor, an appointment established in 1997 to honor outstanding service to undergraduate education.
Emilie Dressaire, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering
Emilie Dressaire received her undergraduate degree in Physics and Chemical Engineering from ESPCI (France) and her masters degree in Biophysics from the University of Paris. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University in 2009. During her graduate studies, she studied the shaping fluid-fluid interfaces through capillary, elastic, and gravitational effects. After spending one year as a postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University (Canada), she joined the Trinity College faculty as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. She was a visiting researcher at Princeton University in 2013-2014. In the fall of 2014, she became an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering. Her research endeavors to discern the fundamental mechanisms that govern particle-laden flows in confined fluidic environments and flow-microstructure interactions.
Alban Sauret, Ph.D.
Alban Sauret is currently a research scientist at CNRS in France. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from ENS Lyon (France). He then completed his PhD in mechanical engineering in Aix-Marseille University (France). He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University with Prof. H. A. Stone in 2013-2014. He is currently working in the "Surfaces, Glass and Interfaces" laboratory that is a joint CNRS/Saint-Gobain research center near Paris (France) and is a visiting academic at NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering in the ''Particles, Interfaces and Fluids" laboratory. He is also a consultant for Saint-Gobain for questions related to industrial processes that involve granular materials, suspensions and fluids.
Intellectual Property Status
Patent applications are pending. Princeton is seeking industrial collaborators for further development and commercialization of this technology.
Contact
Michael Tyerech
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing • (609) 258-6762• tyerech@princeton.edu
Sarah Johnson
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing • sajohnso@princeton.edu