Diffusiophoresis of a Weakly Charged Dielectric Fluid Droplet in a Cylindrical Pore

Diffusiophoresis of a weakly charged dielectric droplet in a cylindrical pore is investigated theoretically in this study. The governing fundamental electrokinetic equations are solved with a patched pseudo-spectral method based on Chebyshev polynomials, coupled with a geometric mapping scheme to take care of the irregular solution domain. The impact of the boundary confinement effect upon the droplet motion is explored in detail, which is most profound in narrow channels. We found, among other things, that the droplet moving direction may reverse with varying channel widths. Enhanced motion-inducing double-layer polarization due to the presence of a nearby channel wall is found to be responsible for it. In particular, an interesting and seemingly peculiar phenomenon referred to as the “solidification phenomenon” is observed here at some specific critical droplet sizes or electrolyte strengths in narrow channels, under which all the droplets move at identical speeds regardless of their viscosities. They move like a rigid particle without the surface spinning motions and the induced interior recirculating vortex flows. As the corresponding shear rate is zero at this point, the droplet is resilient to undesirable exterior shear stresses tending to damage the droplet in motion. This provides a helpful guideline in the fabrication of liposomes in drug delivery in terms of the optimal liposome size, as well as in the microfluidic and nanofluidic manipulations of cells, among other potential practical applications. The effects of other parameters of electrokinetic interest are also examined.