1.

Electro viscous effects on pressure-driven flow of dilute electrolyte

solutions in small microchannel

L. Ren et al., Significant electroviscous effects have been found for dilute electrolyte
solutions flowing through small microchannels. However, dicted by the traditional
electrokinetic flow model, which involves the application of the Boltzmann distribution
for ionic concentration field in the liquid. A new theoretical model is developed in this
paper to examine the electroviscous effects. Instead of using the Boltzmann distribution,
ionic number conservation, the Poisson equation, and the Nernst equation are used to
find the ionic concentration field. This model considers the deficit of the counterions and
the surplus of the co-ions outside the EDL, which is important for dilute solutions in
small systems. Consequently there are a nonzero electrical potential gradient and a net
charge (co-ion) density near the middle plane of the microchannel. Because of the much
higher local flow velocity, the transport of the net charge at the center of the microchannel
results in a much higher streaming current and hence a stronger streaming potential. This
is the reason for the high electroviscous effects observed in experimental studies. The
strong agreement between the experimentally determined and model-predicted dP/dx ∼
Re relationships supports this newly developed model.
Fig. 11. Comparison of experimentally determined dP/dx ∼ Re relationship

with the model predictions of this relationship for 1.0 × 10−4 M KCl

solution when (a) the channel height is 14.1 μm, (b) the channel height is

28.2 μm, and (c) the channel height is 40.5 μm.

A vibrational Model for Two-Phase
Immiscible Electroosmotic Flow at Solid
Surfaces.
Sihong Shao1 and Tiezheng Qian2,
Received 7 December 2010; Accepted (in revised version) 4 May 2011
Available online 28 October 2011

In this paper, we have derived a continuum hydrodynamic model for two-phase

immiscible
EOF at solid surfaces through a variational approach based on theOnsager principle
ofminimum energy dissipation [21]. Thismodel couples the incompressible NS
equation
for momentumtransport, the NP equation for ion transport, the CH phase-field
equation
for interface motion, and the Poisson equation for electric potential. In our
variational
approach, the boundary conditions at solid surfaces, including the GNBC for slip, are
derived as the constitutive equations at fluid-solid interfaces. Numerical results in 2D
channels, which involve overlapped EDL fields, have been obtained to demonstrate
the
validity and applicability of the model, and a few salient features of two-phase
immiscible
EOF at solid surfaces, including the Smoluchowski slip in the EDL and the wall slip
in the vicinity of MCL.
Compared to the model presented in [28] for electrowetting, our model uses two
concentrations
for cations and anions to describe the EDL, with the surface charge density
explicitly taken into account. The structure of EDL and the Smoluchowski slip therein
have been demonstrated in Section 4.2. Our model also introduces a phase-field
barrier
that prevents ions from penetrating through the fluid-fluid interface into the
nonconductive
fluid. Numerical results in Section 4.3 have shown the blocking effect of this barrier
on ion transport. The problem encountered in long-time computations in [28] is
therefore
avoided. Finally, the GNBC is explicitly employed in our numerical implementation,
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.071210.040511a
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available at
S. Shao and T. Qian / Commun. Comput. Phys., 11 (2012), pp. 831-862 859
while in [28] the numerical examples are presented with the no-slip condition.
Motivated by the results presented here, we plan to apply our model to investigate
the electrowetting dynamics with a focus on the boundary slip and the charge
transport
in electrolyte droplets. We also plan to extend our model to incorporate a diffuse
charge
layer bound at the fluid-fluid interface [31, 32]. Finally, the finite size (excluded
volume)
effects in ionic solutions [62] are worth exploration as well. It is expected that the
steric
effects due to the finite size of ions will lower the high concentration near the MCL,
as
shown in Fig. 14, due to a balance between the electric driving force and the hard
sphere
repulsion.

Electroosmotically driven capillary

transport of typical non-Newtonian biofluids
in rectangular microchannels
Suman Chakraborty
Received 21 August 2007 ,Received in revised form 23 October 2007 Accepted 24
October 2007 Published on line 7 November 2007

Newtonian parameters on the electroosmotically driven capillary dynamics of liquids

in microfluidic channels. Certain critical features of electrokinetics [33–41] and
contact angle characteristics [42] are considered. Closed-form expressions are
derived for the various driving and retarding forces, in accordance with a power-law
constitutive model. As an illustrative case study, the flow behavior of a blood sample
is analyzed for disparate hematocrit levels. From the simulation predictions, the
following important conclusions can be drawn:
(i) The meniscus dynamics exhibit a strong dependence on the hematocrit
level of the blood sample.
(ii) (Characteristically higher capillary speeds can be obtained for lower
hematocrit levels.
(iii) Higher hematocrit levelsmay be characterized with a capillary retracting
phenomenon, as attributed to the relative dominance of resistive forces
over the driving influences.The apparent contact angle, while evolving
dynamically, may in fact aid this retracting motion instead of the forward
motion. For low enough driving voltages, this can be of more serious
concern. Additional driving forces may need to be employed in such cases
to retain an unidirectionality of the capillary advancement.
With a detailed understanding of the capillary dynamics obtained from this study, it
is expected that substantially improved blood transportive microsystems can be
designed on the basis of the underlying fundamental conjectures. As an example, an
important objective that may go behind the design of such systems is to provide
precise controls on the transport of blood through microcapillary transport
mechanisms, for continuous self-monitoring of blood glucose levels of diabetic
patients. Since numerous diabetes patients need to check their blood glucose levels
several times a day as a part of self health-monitoring process and inject insulin in
tune with the observed levels, such a precise understanding of the scientific
background behind the capillary filling process, indeed, turns out to be critical. With
the knowledge acquired from the present study regarding the role of the hematocrit
level and the applied voltage on the capillary dynamics, improved blood monitoring
systems can perhaps be designed, in tune with the stringent biomedical
requirements. For designing such lab-on-a-chip-based blood sampling and
transporting microdevices, it needs to be recognized that high hematocrit levels are
inherently characterized with high wall shear stresses, because of a relative
‘bluntness’ in the concerned velocity profiles. The dynamically evolving surface
tension force may not turn out to be adequate in maintaining the capillarymotion in
the forward direction under these circumstances, especially in the limits of low
applied axial voltages. This may be aggravated by the fact that the effective driving
axial potential gradient progressively weakens with further capillary advancement,
on account of an increase in the axial length over which it remains operative in the
liquid region. This dynamic imbalance may lead to the onset of a capil lary retracting
phenomenon. The fundamental origin of this retraction is not the reversing of the
effective polarity but an effective dominance of the net resistive influences over the
driving influences. The dynamically evolving contact angle may, in fact, aid this
retracting trend, instead of acting in opposition. This aspect needs to be aptly taken
into account
for designing such microscale electromotive capillary-filling systems handling non-
Newtonian biofluids in lab-on-a-chipbased applications. Perhaps additional driving
influences (for example, imposed pressure gradients/magnetic fields) need to be
employed in suitable conjunction to maintain unidirectional capillary advancement
under those limiting conditions.

Numerical simulation of two-fluid

electroosmotic
flow in microchannels
Yandong Gao, T.N. Wong *, J.C. Chai, C. Yang, K.T. Ooi
Received 13 January 2005; received in revised form 5 August 2005 Available online
7 October 2005

we presented numerical simulations results for two liquids electroosmotic flow in

straight channel. The simulations are performed for a specified inlet flowrate
conditions and the electroosmotic forces are applied locally. The simulation results
demonstrate the interface locations of a pressure-driven two-liquid flow in a
microchannel can be controlled by using the electroosmotic flow effects. This
concept has potential application for switching and cell sorting in bioanalytical
systems.
Micro-scale thermo-fluidic transport in two
immiscible liquid layers subject to
combined electroosmotic and pressure-
driven transport
Anirban Garai, Suman Chakraborty
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
721 302, India

A theoretical model has been established in this study for fully developed convective
heat transfer in two immiscible fluid layers confined within parallel plate
microchannels subjected to electroosmotic effects. The velocity and temperature
distributions in the two fluid layers have been obtained analytically, under constant
wall heat flux conditions. It has also been verified (not detailed in the manuscript for
brevity) that the analytical solutions agree excellently with more involved full-scale
numerical solution predictions. The upper fluid layer has been assumed to be weakly
conducting, as compared to the lower one. It has been revealed that the highest
value of the Nussle number corresponding to the bottom fluid layer occurs when the
channel walls are cooled, whereas the same in the top fluid layer occurs when the
external heat fluxes to the walls are effectively zero. The case with wall cooling is
characterized with a decrement in the Nusselt number corresponding to the bottom
fluid (electrically more conducting layer) with a thickening of its lateral extent,
whereas for all other cases the Nusselt number increases with increments in the
conducting layer thickness.

Interface control of pressure-driven two-

fluid flow in
Micro channels using electro osmosis
Cheng Wang, Yandong Gao, Nam-Trung Nguyen, Teck Neng Wong§, Chun
Yang, Kim Tiow Ooi
Our paper reports a new technique for controlling the velocity mismatch between
two parallel fluid streams in a microchannel being driven by a pressure gradient.
Because of the difference in viscosity of the two fluids, the more viscous fluid tends
to occupy more width of the microchannel, thus cause the interface position
deviation from the central position and residence time difference. This is problematic
for diffusion-based microfluidic applications. The interface position of two-fluid flow
in microchannel can be controlled using the electroosmosis effect, rather then the
conventional ”flow-rate-ratio” method. By applying electric potential along the
microchannel, the electroosmosis effect retards or adds the flow of one stream, so
that the velocity profile and interface position can be adjusted. The experiment
demonstrated a new method to solve the unmatched viscosity problem of the two-
fluid flow in microchannel, which are very often used in biological extraction or
separation, sorting, or exchange process. Quantitatively, the velocity field of two-
fluid under pressure and electroosmosis effect was measured using the micro-PIV
technique. Comparison between theoretical prediction and the measured velocity
profiles are presented.

Electroosmotic flow in a water column

surrounded by an immiscible liquid
Saeid Movahed, Sina Khani, John Z. Wen, Dongqing Li ⇑
Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1

In this paper, we studied the electroosmotic flow velocity field in a column of an

aqueous solution surrounded by another immiscible liquid. The EDL + SCs model is
utilized as the most realistic boundary condition to simulate the velocity fields across
the liquid– liquid interface. It is demonstrated that the velocity profile in the water
column has a plug-like form. The velocity in the immiscible liquid side decreases
from a maximum at the interface to zero on its outer boundary. The presence of the
surface electrostatic charge at the interface of the two liquids results in a sharp
velocity discontinuity at the interface. Higher values of the 1-potential result in
stronger flow in both phase of the system and a larger velocity difference across the
interface. Finally, increasing the viscosity of the surrounding medium (increasing the
value of b) will decrease the velocity of the immiscible liquid. The results of this
study may serve as a starting point for the future design and development of a
liquid–liquid microfluidic network.

Analysis of Multi-Layer Immiscible Fluid

Flow in a Microchannel
Paul S. Sheeran
In this study, pressure-driven and/or electroosmotic immiscible multilayer flows in
microchannels have been investigated. Assuming steady laminar fully-developed
flow, general equations for velocity and shear stress profiles of N layers of different
viscosities were derived, resulting in a compact set of equations that can be used to
explore various fluid properties and system parameters for any number of fluid
layers. The numerical simulation results, using ANSYS CFX, match theoretical results,
which can be readily programmed using analytical mathematics software such as
MATLAB. Entrance flow effects with centered fluid-layer shrinking were studied as
well. Specifically, cases with larger viscosities in the inner layers show a very good
agreement with experimental correlations for the dimensionless entrance length as
a function of inlet Reynolds number. However, significant deviations may occur for
multilayer flows with smaller viscosities in the inner layers. A correlation was
deducted for the two-layer electroosmotic flow and the pressure driven flow, both
being more complex when compared with single-layer flows. The impact of using
power-law fluids on resulting velocity profiles has also been explored and compared
to Newtonian fluid flows. The present model readily allows for an exploration of the
impact of design choices on velocity profiles, shear stress, and channel distribution
in multilayer microchannel flows as a function of layered viscosity distribution and
type of driving force.

Two-layer electro-osmotic flow and heat

transfer in a hydrophobic micro-channel
with fluid-solid interfacial slip and zeta
potential difference
G. C. Shit, A. Mondal, A. Sinha, P. K. Kundu
In this work, we have presented a mathematical model for describing the electro-osmotic flow and
heat transfer
of two-layer fluids in a micro-channel in the presence of different slip velocity at the channel walls.
The problem
has been solved analytically. The analytical expressions for electro-osmotic flow velocity and
temperature are presented
in Section-2 through the equations (22), (23), (31) and (32). The effects of interface zeta potential
difference,
dielectric constant ratio, interface charge density jump, slip parameter, pressure gradient, viscosity
ratio, Joule heating
parameter, Brinkman number as well as Peclet number respectively have been systematically studied
and presented
them graphically. The main findings of the present study are summarized as follows:
• Interfacial zeta potential depends on the properties of two fluids. The amplitude of fluid velocity
enhances
with the interface zeta potential difference. The results indicate that the effects of interfacial zeta
potential are
significant on the fluid velocity. Moreover, the electro-osmotic flow has finite jump at the interface
between two
fluid layers.
• The axial velocity has enhancing effect on the slip parameter. The boundary slip at the channel wall
exhibits
an important applications in medical science and technology such as in polishing valves of artificial
heart and
internal cavities.
• The effect of viscous dissipation is found to be of essential importance in the heat transfer analysis.
• The temperature distribution in a slit micro-channel can be controlled by regulating the Joule
heating parameter.
• The rate of heat transfer has greater impact on the dissipation of energy due to the presence of
viscosity of fluid
and the Joule heating effect.
We hope that this investigation may help for further studies in the field of medical sciences. The
results presented
in this investigation may provide necessary information for further studies by considering rheological
fluid
model.