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Updated: May 22, 2026

Merging Ion Concentration Polarization between Juxtaposed Ion Exchange Membranes to Block the Propagation of the Polarization Zone
Published on: February 23, 2017
Concentration polarization in translocation of DNA through nanopores and nanochannels
Siddhartha Das1, Pavel Dubsky, Albert van den Berg
1Physics of Fluids Group and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
In this Letter we provide a theory to show that high-field electrokinetic translocation of DNA through nanopores or nanochannels causes large transient variations of the ionic concentrations in front and at the back of the DNA due to concentration polarization (CP). The CP causes strong local conductivity variations, which can successfully explain the nontrivial current transients and ionic distributions observed in molecular dynamics simulations of nanopore DNA translocations as well as the transient current dips and spikes measured for translocating hairpin DNA. Most importantly, as the future of sequencing of DNA by nanopore translocation will be based on time-varying electrical conductance, CP, must be considered in experimental design and interpretation--currently these studies are mostly based on the incomplete pore conductance models that ignore CP and transients in the electrical conductance.
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