Langmuir, Vol.24, No.11, 5659-5662, 2008
Tunable filtration media employing alternating current electrokinetics
Separation of colloidal particles from aqueous media by barrier filtration is typically dictated by sieving mechanisms. Here, we demonstrate that colloid filtration by porous membranes can be considerably augmented by suitably superimposing an alternating current (AC) electric field on the membrane. The combined steric-dielectrophoretic filtration can result in very high rejection of the particles compared to solely steric rejection.