Voltage-capacitance program

 
The "Voltage-capacitance" program records capacitance of membrane polarized by linear sweep potential.

 Capacitance of bilayer lipid membranes depends on polarization potential. Three parameters of the membranes can be changed during their polarization: bilayer area, membrane thickness, and membrane permittivity. Two phenomena caused these changes: electrocompression phenomenon and electrocapillary effects - changes of surface tension on the Plateau-Gibbs border / electrolyte solution interface. Recording of capacitance as a polarization potential function allows to estimate the membrane electrocompressibility and elasticity modulus.

Hardware

The program controls the KSP measurement system with following modules:

CCONV-40 - capacitance-to-digital converter
DAC-1201 - digital-to-analog convereter
TIMER-49 - programmable timer

 Main window of the "Voltage - capacitance" program.

Files

VOLTCAP.EXE - main program file
VOLTCAP.INI - configuration file
VOLTCAP.HLP - help file

CCONV.DLL - driver for the capacitance-to-digital converter module
DAC.DLL - driver for the digital-to-analog converter module
TIMER.DLL - driver for the programmable timer module

 *.VCP - files with measurement data

The files VOLTCAP.EXE, VOLTCAP.INI, VOLTCAP.HLP are contained in the file VOLTCAP.ZIP.
The *.DLL files you must download separately.

Selected papers

  • S. Kalinowski and Z. Figaszewski, A new system for bilayer lipid membrane capacitance measurements: method, apparatus and applications. Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1112 (1992) 57-66.
  • S. Kalinowski and Z. Figaszewski, Uklad do pomiaru pojemnosci membran, Polish patent nr 161973, March 28, 1994.
  • S. Kalinowski and Z. Figaszewski, A four-electrode system for measurement of bilayer lipid membrane capacitance, Meas. Sci. Technol., 6 (1995) 1043-1049.

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