Sharif Digital Repository

The significant importance of micro-scaled devices in medicine, lab-on-a-chip, and etc resulted in a vast variety of researches. The idea behind the novel hydro magnetic micro-pump and flow controller is that ferromagnetic particles, mixed and dispersed in a carrier fluid, can be accumulated and retained at specific sites to form pistons in a micro-tube using some external magnetic field sources along the micro-tube. This external magnetic field is related to some solenoids, which are turned on and off alternatively. Depending upon dragging speed of these pistons, which itself is a function of switching time, this device can be used to either increase (pumping) or decrease (valving) the flow... 

Fog harvesting is an unconventional source of water that can be used in some regions with water scarcity to overcome water shortages. The most commonly used collectors are meshes which have intrinsic limitations, the most important of which are clogging and aerodynamic deviation of droplets around the wires. Here, three techniques are compared and combined to overcome these limitations, i.e., replacing the mesh with an array of vertical wires, addition of a hydrophobic layer to the wires, and forcing the ionized droplets to move toward the wires by applying an electric field. The combination of these techniques was found to result in higher fog harvesting efficiency compared to each... 

We developed a modified straightforward method for the fabrication of uniformly sized silica-coated magnetite clusters core/shell type nanocomposite particles. Proposed simple one-step processing method permits quick production of materials in high yield. The structural, surface, and magnetic characteristics of the nanocomposite particles were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR). The sphere-shaped particles almost have the average diameter of 120 nm, with a magnetic cluster core of 80 ± 15 nm, and a silica shell of 25 ± 10 nm... 

We report the rheological properties of ferro-fluid (FF) containing iron oxide nano-particles. At first, a FF was synthesized by using chemical co-precipitaton[1]. The microstructure study using SEM revealed that the FF contained nano-particles with the mean particle size of 35nm. The XRD study revealed that we have well crystallized structures of magnetite; they appeared to be approximately single crystalline structures. The rheological results proved that the FF has non Newtonian behavior, it is a shear thinning fluid in all magnetic fields, Moreover, the magnetic field increases the viscosity in a definite shear rate due to the nano-particles agglomerations and formation of chain-like... 

A unique method was used to facilitate ocular drug delivery from periocular route by drug loaded magnetic sensitive particles. Injection of particles in periocular space along the eye axis followed by application of magnetic field in front of the eye would trigger the magnetic polymeric particles to move along the direction of magnetic force and reside against the outer surface of the sclera. This technique prevents removal of drug in the periocular space, observed in conventional transscleral drug delivery systems and hence higher amount of drug can enter the eye in a longer period of time. The experiments were performed by fresh human sclera and an experimental setup. Experimental setup... 

Iron-borosilicate soft magnetic composites are suitable magnetic materials for high temperature and high frequency applications. In this research two different techniques have been applied to fabricate these composites: uniaxial pressing following by sintering and spark plasma sintering. Different processing parameters including the content of borosilicate, the amount of compaction pressure and the size of iron particles have been evaluated through the study of microstructure and magnetic properties. The microstructural observations showed that the borosilicate is distributed on the iron grain boundaries enhancing the resistivity and causing the loss of eddy currents. Increasing the... 

In this work, sessile drop and low-bond axisymmetric drop shape analysis methods were coupled to provide some new aspects on stick-slip behavior as well as stick time of a drop on calcite surfaces. Slightly hydrophobic calcite surfaces typified with three irregular roughnesses were used to create irregular surfaces to mimic defects for the water-calcite-air systems. Polishing papers of 200, 600, and 1200 grit and a polishing machine were used to prepare surfaces. X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared, and atomic force microscopy techniques were employed to evaluate the chemical and physical properties of surfaces. A model was developed to predict... 

Surface-modified magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles with an average size of 22 nm were prepared. The nanoparticles had a saturation magnetization of 50.7 emu g-1. Then magnetite and drug-loaded microspheres of poly (lactic acid)/poly (ethylene glycol) were prepared at various compositions. The microspheres were spherical in shape and had smooth surface. The diameter size of the microspheres ranged between about 0.2 and 4 μm. Doxorubicin hydrochloride for cancer treatment was the drug that loaded into the microspheres. The prepared microspheres were characterized by FTIR, XRD, VSM, SEM and drug-release measurements. It was found that the drug cumulative release percentage was proportional to... 

The novel idea of the Hydromagnetic Micropump and Flow Controller (HMFC) is used in this paper to construct a laboratory setup capable of bidirectional pumping and controlling the flow in microtubes. A laboratory setup, which contains no moving parts, is integrated with a pressure-driven flow setup to make the presented HMFC device. The device operation is based on controllable motion of magnetic particles, added to the carrier fluid, caused by the magnetic field, produced by solenoids located just next to the microtube. The magnitude of these forces is proportional to the strength and gradient of magnetic field which, in turn, is related to the electrical current and arrangement of the... 

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) with narrow size distribution and stabilized by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) were synthesized. The particles were prepared by a coprecipitation technique using ferric and ferrous salts with a molar Fe3+/Fe2+ ratio of 2. Using a design of experiments (DOE) approach, the effect of different synthesis parameters (stirring rate and base molarity) on the structure, morphology, saturation magnetization, purity, size, and size distribution of the synthesized magnetite nanoparticles was studied by various analysis techniques including X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)... 

Core-shell iron-gold (Fe@Au) nanoparticles were synthesized by a facile reverse micelle procedure and the effect of water to surfactant molar ratio (w) on the size, size distribution and magnetic properties of the nanoparticles was studied. MTT assay was utilized to evaluate the cell toxicity of the nanoparticles. To functionalize the particles for MRI imaging and targeted drug delivery, the particles were coated by polyglycerol through capping with thiol followed by polymerization of glycidol. The characteristics of the particles were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometere (VSM), UV-visible spectroscopy, and Fourier...