Apparatus to measure electrophoretic mobility of a flowing sample
AssigneeWyatt Technology Corporation
InventorsHung-Te Hsieh, Steven P. Trainoff
Life of this patent
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Abstract
When measuring electrophoretic mobility it is customary to apply an electric field and determine the electrophoretic velocity while minimizing all other contributions to the particle movement. A method and apparatus for the measurement of mobility while the sample is flowing is disclosed. Combined with a fractionation system, this approach further enables the direct measurement of individual species' mobility within a multi-modal sample. Other advantages of this new mobility measurement approach include the ability to easily pressurize the sample to suppress electrolysis, mitigation of oxidation-reduction effects and efficient heat dissipation.
Claims7
An apparatus comprising:
- a fractionator configured to fractionate a sample solution comprising particles;
- a fluid inlet coupled to an outlet of the fractionator and coupled to a measurement chamber,
- wherein the fluid inlet is configured to introduce the sample solution into the measurement chamber;
- a measurement chamber configured to allow the sample solution to flow in a direction essentially parallel to a path of a laser beam transmitted through the measurement chamber, resulting in a fluid flow;
- a fluid outlet coupled to the measurement chamber,
- wherein the fluid outlet is configured to allow the sample solution to exit the measurement chamber;
- electrodes configured to generate an alternating electric field across the measurement chamber and essentially perpendicular to the direction,
- thereby minimizing a Doppler component from the fluid flow;
- and
- a concentration detector coupled to the fractionator and coupled to the measurement chamber,
- wherein the concentration detector is configured to measure a concentration of each species in the sample solution, resulting in a measured concentration of the each species in the sample solution.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.