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Sculpting Nanoflows With Supercomputers

Posted by timothy on from the pinball-bumpers-zoomed-way-out dept.

aarondubrow writes "Researchers reported results in Nature Communications on a new way of sculpting tailor-made fluid flows by placing tiny pillars in microfluidic channels [abstract; article is paywalled]. The method could allow clinicians to better separate white blood cells in a sample, increase mixing in industrial applications, and more quickly perform lab-on-a-chip-type operation. Using the Ranger and Stampede supercomputers, the researchers ran more than 1,000 simulations representing combinations of speeds, thicknesses, heights or offsets that produce unique flows. This library of transformations will help the broader community design and use sculpted fluid flows."

11 comments

  1. What they need is something like by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

    Maxwell's demon

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:What they need is something like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since these are physical objects upon which the molecules are bouncing off of, the flows of molecules are expending energy into the structures, meaning Maxwell's demon effects would be impossible except in a very limited scope.

  2. /. servers 86'd by Anachragnome · · Score: 0

    /. servers 86'd

  3. The original paper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    can be found here - http://biomicrofluidics.com/publications_files/Amini_NatComm2013.pdf

  4. Microfluidic separation? by gregor-e · · Score: 2

    I wonder whether precise positioning of polar and non-polar posts could be used to encourage mixtures to separate into streams that are enriched in hydrophobic or hydrophilic components? Pour wine in and get one stream of watery juice and another stream of brandy out?

    1. Re:Microfluidic separation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Water and ethanol cannot be separated that way because they are both hydrophilic

      However their charge distribution is quite different because of the OH

      So instead of hydrophilic/hydrophobic, you do positive/negative based on ion dissociation at those conditions (which you can adjust with microelectrodes or microlaserchannels in your microfluidics which is pretty easy to do if you're going to go as far as e-beam etching yourself a waveguide because at this point, you might as well)

      Posting this in the sunny year 2059 from my iPhone 51 running Firefox 398. They're releasing 399 in a few weeks, I hear it improves Objective-Rustubytherl performance by a factor of e^sqrt(1.5) on the new Pepsi Presents TSMC quantum proc. It has up to 64 qcores, but they disable some at the factory depending on yield so your chip says it has 64 but it might only have 48 depending on if there's a cat in the room

      Wal*pplenald's-Monsanto brought back Time Machine but this time it's literally a time machine. It's pretty useful but it slows the system down too much

  5. Re:Seriously though... by black3d · · Score: 2

    It certainly does demonstrate the changing audience of /. when "George Zimmerman Acquitted In Death of Trayvon Martin" has 1256 comments, and "Sculpting Nanoflows With Supercomputers" has 7..
     
    As much as we decry the aforementioned not qualifying as "News for nerds", this disparity speaks volume to the actual readership interests.

    --
    "The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
  6. not nano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    where are the tags?

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