| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 機械工程系 === 95 === Recently, it is shown that the addition of small amount of gold nano-particles can drastically enhance the efficiency of a traditional temperature cycling polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine in the amplification of DNA, Li et al. [1]. Although the enhancement mechanism remains unknown, it is generally believed that the heat transfer efficiency of the system is increased by the addition of the nanoparticles, Li et al. [2]. A Rayleigh-B´enard convection cell (RBCC) is setup to study the heat driven flow properties of nano-particle enriched fluids and to perform the PCR at the same time. In electrophoresis experiments, it is found that the addition of gold nano-particles also enhances the efficiency of the PCR in a RBCC. Similar to previous findings, there is an optimal nano-particle concentration for the PCR.Velocity measurements reveal that the convection flow pattern in the RBCC is changed by the addition of nano-particles in the fluids. Possible mechanisms for the relation between the flow patterns and the PCR efficiency are discussed.
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