Studies on binary mixtures of solvents and investigations on transport of materials through lipid bilayer employing scanning electrochemical microscopy

• Grant number: 08/01112-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: January 01, 2009
• End date: August 31, 2009
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Mauro Bertotti
• Grantee: Tiago Luiz Ferreira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present work aims to employ scanning electrochemical microscopy in order to study solvent binary mixtures with different electrochemical probes and to investigate the transport of specific molecules through lipid bilayer membranes. In the first case, scanning eletrochemical microscopy allows the diffusion coefficient of species electrogenerated from the probe previously added in the mixture to be calculated. The values of diffusion coefficient will be obtained in different proportions between the solvents in the mixture. These data will be used to evaluate the interactions among the probe and the solvent molecules. The second step will involve experiments with lipid bilayers to verify the permeability of certain species through the membranes.