An optical micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) structure is provided. The structure includes an elastomer membrane, a plurality of polymer fibers attached to the elastomer membrane, an array of detectors operatively connected to the plurality of polymer fibers at a first end of the plurality of polymer fibers, and a microlens array operatively connected to the plurality of polymer fibers at...

The immersion precipitation process makes most commercial polymeric membranes, which enjoy widespread use in water filtration and purification. In this work, a ternary Cahn-Hilliard formulation incorporating a Flory-Huggins homogeneous free energy function is used to model both initial diffusion and the liquid-liquid demixing stage of the immersion precipitation process, which determines much o...

In this study, polystyrene ethylene butylene polystyrene (PSEBS) was functionalized to prepare mono and bipolar ion exchange membranes. In the case of the bipolar membrane, platinum was used as the intermediate layer. NaCl solution of concentration ranging from 5 g/L to 25 g/L was used as the feed solution. A commercially procured ion exchange membrane made of polystyrene divinyl benzene was al...

Biological adhesion typically occurs through discrete cross bridges between complementary molecules on adjacent membranes. Here we report quantitative measurements of the binding distance between a lipid membrane functionalized with ligands on flexible polymer tether chains and a second membrane bearing complementary receptors using the surface force apparatus technique. The binding distance is...

Antibacterial polysiloxane polymers with pending tert-butylamine groups are a novel class of compounds that are compatible with silicone elastomers, but their mechanism of action is not well understood. The research into their action mechanism was conducted on a polysiloxane copolymer grafted with tert-butylaminoethyl methacrylate and covalently attached fluorescein. Fluorometric measurements r...