Thermophoresis of a Poly-Acrylimide Based Polyelectrolyte

Thermophoresis, the migration of a species due to a temperature gradient, has been studied extensively, both in experiment and in simulation. Research has yielded thermal diffusion coefficients for migrating polyeletrolytes and a plausible mechanism for migration, but these studies are largely limited to DNA. We present an experiment to study a poly-acyrlamide based, charge-bearing, dye-tagged copolymer, characterized by molecular weight and viscosity, in temperature-graded micro-fluidic channels. From this experiment, we present measured thermal diffusion coefficients and compare to the results for DNA. We also provide data from a lattice-Boltzman method simulation to compare with experimental findings.