Research Goal

Electrolytic conductivity measurements have extensive use in many engineering, chemical and biological applications, such as in water purification, electroplating, and chemical, blood and urea analysis, to name a few. Conventional conductivity measurement methods with electrodes, or inductive devices without electrodes, have poor spatial resolution, typically larger than 1 cm and requires at least tens milliliters of sample volume.  In some applications, there is a need for microscale sensors that have very small volume sample analysis.  The overall objective of this work is to fabricate and characterize the next generation of thin-film conductivity microsensors for science and industry.  To this end, robust sensors are created along with the circuits to drive them. These microsensors push the bounds of the operable range with modifications in design and fabrication as well as through changes in the driving circuits.  During this project, we redesigned the fabrication of the sensors in the details to improve the performance of the sensors, which are of the order of 100 microns or smaller in cross-section.  The next phase is to test these sensors within the boundary layer of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes for salt concentration.  In addition, the effect of natural organic matter (NOM), which are typically concentrated on membranes in water purification, on the conductivity measurements will be conducted (NSF WaterCAMPWS).

 

Research Team:

Charles Connell, Mbikayi, Nsumuna, and Ife Adeniyi

Acknowledgement:

Work partially supported by NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center Grant #

Related Publications: