Sharif Digital Repository

Being the second cause of mortality across the globe, there is now a persistent effort to establish new cancer medication and therapies. Any accomplishment in treating cancers entails the existence of accurate identification systems empowering the early diagnosis. Recent studies indicate CTCs’ potential in cancer prognosis as well as therapy monitoring. The chief shortcoming with CTCs is that they are exceedingly rare cells in their clinically relevant concentration. Here, we simulated a microfluidic construct devised for immunomagnetic separation of the particles of interest from the background cells. This separation unit is integrated with a mixer subunit. The mixer is envisioned for... 

In this work, we implement a relatively new analytical technique, the exp-function method, for solving nonlinear special form of generalized nonlinear (2 + 1) dimensional Broer-Kaup-Kupershmidt equation, which may contain high nonlinear terms. This method can be used as an alternative to obtain analytic and approximate solutions of different types of fractional differential equations which applied in engineering mathematics. Some numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency and reliability of exp method. It is predicted that exp-function method can be found widely applicable in engineering  

The effect of SiO2/Al2O3 ratio on high silica content nano-sized HZSM-5 stability and selectivity in conversion of methanol to propylene (MTP) has been investigated in a continuous flow isotherm fixed-bed reactor. Highly crystalline HZSM-5 zeolite samples with SiO2/Al2O3 ratios ranging 150–200 have been prepared and characterized using XRD, ICP-AES analytical techniques, NH3-TPD, BET surface area and SEM imaging for studying their physical and chemical behavior. The reaction was conducted at 480 °C and 1bar with WHSV = 1 h−1 and a solution with 1:1 wt% of methanol and water as feed. Over thoroughly monitoring the catalyst synthesis conditions, the nanocrystal ZSM-5 zeolite samples were... 

The integration of microfluidics with electrochemical analysis has resulted in the development of single miniaturized detection systems, which allows the precise control of sample volume with multianalyte detection capability in a cost- and time-effective manner. Microfluidic electrochemical sensing devices (MESDs) can potentially serve as precise sensing and monitoring systems for the detection of molecular markers in various detrimental diseases. MESDs offer several advantages, including (i) automated sample preparation and detection, (ii) low sample and reagent requirement, (iii) detection of multianalyte in a single run, (iv) multiplex analysis in a single integrated device, and (v)... 

A series of Cr-substituted Fe-Ti compounds were prepared by the co-precipitation method and were systematically investigated as catalysts for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO by NH 3. A variety of analytical techniques revealed that the Cr substitution amount affects the N 2 selectivity, SCR activity, redox behavior of NH 3/NO x, adsorption ability, and structure of catalysts in terms of surface properties, porosity, mobility of lattice oxygen, oxidative ability of Cr species, ratio of Bronsted acid sites and Lewis acid sites, NO x adsorption capacity, and structural disorder and distortion. In a series of Fe aCr 1-aTiO x (a = 1, 0.75, 0.5, 0.2, 0) catalysts, Fe 0.5Cr 0.5TiO x... 

Health, Margin and Risk states which in recent years are known as well-being reliability indices, provide a comprehensive adequacy assessment of bulk power system reliability studies. Conventional reliability information about power system operation only considered health and risk states which were not often adequate criteria both in system planning and utilization. It seems margin state as the intermediate condition between health and risk must be considered. Well-being method which is a approach to power system generation adequacy evaluation incorporates deterministic criteria in a probabilistic framework and provides system operating information in addition to risk assessment and can be... 

In this paper, the effects of two methods of iridium impregnation into HZSM-5 on catalyst stability, selectivity for propylene and byproducts in the conversion of methanol to propylene (MTP) were investigated in a continuous flow isotherm fixed-bed reactor. XRD, BET surface area, NH 3-TPD and ICP-AES analytical techniques were applied to define the physical and chemical characteristics of zeolites. The reaction was conducted at 480°C and 1 bar with WHSV = 1 h -1, and with an equal weight percent of methanol and water in the feed. The results revealed that iridium impregnation into HZSM-5 powder led to enhanced propylene selectivity (8%) and catalyst stability while iridium impregnation into... 

The effect of particle size, lattice strain and crystallite size on the hydrogen desorption properties of nanocrystalline magnesium hydride powder was investigated. Commercial MgH2 powder was milled in a Spex 8000M up to 16 h and its structural evolution and desorption characteristics at different time intervals were examined using various analytical techniques. At the early stage of milling, the formation of metastable γ-MgH2 phase was noticed. While the crystallite size gradually decreased to 12 nm with increasing the milling time, the accumulated lattice strain gained a maximum value of 0·9% after 4 h milling. The highest drop in the desorption temperature (∼100°C) was attained at the... 

The effect of particle size on the catalytic activity of H-ZSM-5 zeolite in the methanol to propylene (MTP) reaction was investigated in a fixed-bed flow reactor under the operating conditions of T = 460 °C, P = 1 atm, and WHSV = 1 h-1. Nano and micro size H-ZSM-5 were prepared by reflux and hydrothermal crystallization methods, respectively. The nano and micro H-ZSM-5 were characterized using XRD, NH3-TPD, BET area, SEM and ICP-AES analytical techniques. Nano size H-ZSM-5 showed higher activity and stability compared to the micro size H-ZSM-5. Nano H-ZSM-5 was also found to have higher selectivity to propylene than the micro size H-ZSM-5. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

With significant advancements in research technologies, and an increasing global population, microfluidic and nanofluidic systems (such as point-of-care, lab-on-a-chip, organ-on-a-chip, etc) have started to revolutionize medicine. Devices that combine micron and nanotechnologies have increased sensitivity, precision and versatility for numerous medical applications. However, while there has been extensive research on microfluidic and nanofluidic systems, very few have experienced wide-spread commercialization which is puzzling and deserves our collective attention. For the above reasons, in this article, we review research advances that combine micro and nanotechnologies to create the next... 

Isolation of rare cancer cells is one of the important and valuable stages of cancer research. Regarding the rarity of cancer cells in blood samples, it is important to invent an efficient separation device for cell enrichment. In this study, two centrifugal microfluidic devices were designed and fabricated for the isolation of rare cancer cells. The first design (passive plan) employs a contraction–expansion array (CEA) microchannel which is connected to a bifurcation region. This device is able to isolate the target cells through inertial effects and bifurcation law. The second design (hybrid plan) also utilizes a CEA microchannel, but instead of using the bifurcation region, it is... 

Droplet-based microfluidic systems have been employed to manipulate discrete fluid volumes with immiscible phases. Creating the fluid droplets at microscale has led to a paradigm shift in mixing, sorting, encapsulation, sensing, and designing high throughput devices for biomedical applications. Droplet microfluidics has opened many opportunities in microparticle synthesis, molecular detection, diagnostics, drug delivery, and cell biology. In the present review, we first introduce standard methods for droplet generation (i.e. passive and active methods) and discuss the latest examples of emulsification and particle synthesis approaches enabled by microfluidic platforms. Then, the applications... 

Micro and nanotechnology can potentially revolutionize drug delivery systems. Novel microfluidic systems have been employed for the cell culture applications and drug delivery by micro and nanocarriers. Cells in the microchannels are under static and dynamic flow perfusion of culture media that provides nutrition and removes waste from the cells. This exerts hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces on the cells. These forces can considerably affect the functions of the living cells. In this paper, we simulated the flow of air, culture medium, and the particle transport and deposition in the microchannels under different angles of connection inlet. It was found that the shear stress induced by the... 

Sulfur compounds are essential for many industries and organisms; however, they cause serious respiratory problems in human beings. Therefore, determination of sulfur concentration is of paramount importance. The research approach in the field of detecting contaminants has led to smaller systems that provide faster and more effective ways for diagnosis purposes. In this study, a novel portable amperometric graphene oxide–protein biosensor platform is investigated. The main characteristic of this structure is the implementation of a microfluidic configuration. With albumin metalloprotein as the biorecognition element, graphene oxide was synthesized and characterized by transmission electron... 

Isolation and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) found in blood samples of cancer patients have been considered as a reliable source for cancer prognosis and diagnosis. A new continuous microfluidic platform has been designed in this investigation for simultaneous capture and characterization of CTCs based on their deformability. The deformability-based chip (D-Chip) consists of two sections of separation and characterization where slanted weirs with a gap of 7 μm were considered. Although sometimes CTCs and leukocytes have the same size, the deformability differs in such a way that can be exploited for enrichment purposes. MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines were used for the... 

Miniaturized systems based on the principles of microfluidics are widely used in various fields, such as biochemical and biomedical applications. Systematic design processes are demanded the proper use of these microfluidic devices based on mathematical simulations. Aggregated proteins (e.g., inclusion bodies) in solution with chaotropic agents (such as urea) at high concentration in combination with reducing agents are denatured. Refolding methods to achieve the native proteins from inclusion bodies of recombinant protein relying on denaturant dilution or dialysis approaches for suppressing protein aggregation is very important in the industrial field. In this paper, a modeling approach is... 

In this work, nanocrystalline Al6063 composite powder reinforced with nanometric oxide ceramic particles was synthesized via an in situ solid-gas reaction during high-energy mechanical alloying under a mixture of argon-oxygen atmosphere. The effect of oxygen volume fraction on the morphological evolution and microstructural changes during mechanical alloying was studied by various analytical techniques including optical and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, laser particle size analysis, apparent density measurement, and microhardness test. The reactive mechanical alloying resulted in the formation of amorphous Al- and Al-Mg-Si-Fe oxides with a size range of 40-100. nm and volume... 

Understanding the foreign body response (FBR) and desiging strategies to modulate such a response represent a grand challenge for implant devices and biomaterials. Here, the development of a microfluidic platform is reported, i.e., the FBR-on-a-chip (FBROC) for modeling the cascade of events during immune cell response to implants. The platform models the native implant microenvironment where the implants are interfaced directly with surrounding tissues, as well as vasculature with circulating immune cells. The study demonstrates that the release of cytokines such as monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) from the extracellular matrix (ECM)-like hydrogels in the bottom tissue chamber...