Finite element model of transport phenomena through nanofluidic system for medical applications

Thanks to Dr. Grattoni, Prof. Demarchi and PhD student Di Trani, this thesis has the task to reproduce in silico the phenomena occurring in electrostatically gated nanofluidic membrane for tunable drug release application in medical devices. The studied device can modulate the flux of an electrically charged drug from internal reservoir to the patient passing through a nanochannels membrane. An electric voltage is applied to channels walls to polarize them and obtain an enrichment or depletion of opposite-charge or same-charge drug, respectively, inside them and achieve an increase or decrease, or even stop, of the specific molecule. Using a finite element model developed with Comsol software, the thesis work is correctly reproducing experimental results obtained by Di Trani's tests, introducing new assumptions on manufacturing features of used membrane. Furthermore, the created FE model combines innovative and golden standard features in this field to obtain even more realistic simulations. Indeed, the standard models already proposed in literature have been used as starting point and improved to correctly simulate concentrations of finite-size molecules. In this thesis the effects on enrichment or depletion of studied molecule due to different parameters related with solution, membrane and drug properties are separately studied. Obtained results have shown interesting and not negligible differences from classical FE models which usually consider diffusing molecules as point-like. On the other hand, already studied effects in literature are correctly reproduced.