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Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Chemical Engineering (MS)

College, School or Department Name

Department of Chemical Engineering

First Advisor

Adrienne Minerick

Abstract

Graphene paper is a novel material that features outstanding electrical and thermal properties owing to the unique chemical structure of graphene. Separately, dielectrophoresis (DEP) has been used in microfluidic devices to trap, sort, and identify particles/cells, with the advantages of low sample volume requirements and fast analysis. The three dimensional (3D) DEP microdevice constructed from graphene paper and double sided tape that is described in this thesis has higher sample throughput and more versatile functionalities than traditional two dimensional (2D) DEP devices. To characterize the device, we conducted a series of alternating current (AC) DEP experiments on 6.08 μm diameter polystyrene beads suspended in a spectrum of conductivities from 1.0 × 10-4 S/m to 1.3 S/m. The experimental results agree with both theoretical predictions and previously reported experiment values. This device will be instrumental in testing red blood cells for cholesterol inclusion in the membrane, which is more closely coupled to adverse cardiovascular events than currently measured plasma cholesterol. This subsequent work is important because the 3D graphene paper microdevice may be able to discern membrane cholesterol in a point of care diagnostic microdevice.

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