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Micromachines
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Electrokinetic Particle and Fluid Transport Driven by Solute Concentration and...
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Electrokinetic Particle and Fluid Transport Driven by Solute Concentration and Thermal Gradients

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "C1: Micro/Nanoscale Electrokinetics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 August 2025) | Viewed by 1520

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Henry C. W. Chu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Interests: complex fluids; electrokinetics; hydrophobicity; porous media; rheology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Solute concentration gradients and thermal gradients are promising alternatives to conventional pressure gradients for microscale and nanoscale electrokinetic particle and fluid transport. Recent theories and experiments have demonstrated new transport phenomena, including instability, mixing, particle entrainment, phase separation, and reversals in particle and fluid motion. These contribute to novel applications, such as nanoparticle drug delivery, enhanced oil recovery, the mixture and separation of colloidal species, the manufacture of colloidal films, as well as water and surface cleaning. This Special Issue focuses on studies regarding the electrokinetic particle and fluid transport driven by solute concentration gradients, thermal gradients, and/or a combination of these mechanisms. We welcome the submission of manuscripts that are based on sound scientific theories and/or experiments.

Dr. Henry C. W. Chu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • diffusiophoresis
  • diffusioosmosis
  • thermophoresis
  • thermoosmosis
  • electrodiffusiophoresis
  • electrodiffusioosmosis
  • electrothermophoresis
  • electrothermoosmosis
 

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 908 KiB  
Article
Diffusiophoresis of a Weakly Charged Dielectric Fluid Droplet in a Cylindrical Pore
by Lily Chuang, Sunny Chen, Nemo Chang, Jean Chien, Venesa Liao and Eric Lee
Micromachines 2025, 16(6), 707; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16060707 - 13 Jun 2025
Viewed by 560
Abstract
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electrokinetic Particle and Fluid Transport Driven by Solute Concentration and Thermal Gradients)
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14 pages, 1307 KiB  
Article
Transient Gel Diffusiophoresis of a Spherical Colloidal Particle
by Hiroyuki Ohshima
Micromachines 2025, 16(3), 266; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16030266 - 26 Feb 2025
Viewed by 696
Abstract
A general theory is presented to analyze the time-dependent, transient diffusiophoresis of a charged spherical colloidal particle in an uncharged gel medium containing a symmetrical electrolyte when an electrolyte concentration gradient is suddenly applied. We derive the inverse Laplace transform of an approximate [...] Read more.
A general theory is presented to analyze the time-dependent, transient diffusiophoresis of a charged spherical colloidal particle in an uncharged gel medium containing a symmetrical electrolyte when an electrolyte concentration gradient is suddenly applied. We derive the inverse Laplace transform of an approximate expression for the relaxation function R(t), which describes the time-course of the ratio of the diffusiophoretic mobility of a weakly charged spherical colloidal particle, possessing a thin electrical double layer, to its steady-state diffusiophoretic mobility. The relaxation function depends on the mass density ratio of the particle to the electrolyte solution, the particle radius, the Brinkman screening length, and the kinematic viscosity. However, it does not depend on the type of electrolyte (e.g., KCl or NaCl), which affects only the steady-state gel diffusiophoretic mobility. It is also found that the expression for the relaxation function in transient gel diffusiophoresis of a weakly charged spherical colloidal particle with a thin electrical double layer takes the same form as that for its transient gel electrophoresis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electrokinetic Particle and Fluid Transport Driven by Solute Concentration and Thermal Gradients)
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