Microspinning: Local Surface Mixing via Rotation of Magnetic Microparticles for Efficient Small-Volume Bioassays

The need for high-throughput screening has led to the miniaturization of the reaction volume of the chamber in bioassays. As the reactor gets smaller, surface tension dominates the gravitational or inertial force, and mixing efficiency decreases in small-scale reactions. Because passive mixing by simple diffusion in tens of microliter-scale volumes takes a long time, active mixing is needed. Here, we report an efficient micromixing method using magnetically rotating microparticles with patterned magnetization induced by magnetic nanoparticle chains. Because the microparticles have magnetization patterning due to fabrication with magnetic nanoparticle chains, the microparticles can rotate along the external rotating magnetic field, causing micromixing. We validated the reaction efficiency by comparing this micromixing method with other mixing methods such as simple diffusion and the use of a rocking shaker at various working volumes. This method has the potential to be widely utilized in suspension assay technology as an efficient mixing strategy

Soil Washing of Fluorine Contaminated Soil Using Various Washing Solutions

Bench-scale soil washing experiments were conducted to remove fluoride from contaminated soils. Five washing solutions including hydrochloric acid (HCl), nitric acid (HNO3), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and tartaric acid (C4H6O6) were tested. The concentration of the washing solutions used ranged from 0.1 M to 3 M with a liquid to solid ratio of 10. The soil washing results showed that the most effective washing solution for the removal of fluoride from contaminated soils was HCl. The highest fluoride removal results of approximately 97% from the contaminated soil were obtained using 3M HCl. The fluoride removal efficiency of the washing solution increases in the following order: C4H6O