Electrokinetic instabilities in thin microchannels

An important class of electrokinetic, microfluidic devices aims to pump and control electrolyte working liquids that have spatial gradients in conductivity. These high-gradient flows can become unstable under the application of a sufficiently strong electric field. In many of these designs, flow cha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics of fluids (1994) 2005-01, Vol.17 (1), p.018103-018103-4
Main Authors: Storey, Brian D., Tilley, Burt S., Lin, Hao, Santiago, Juan G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied fluid mechanics
Exact sciences and technology
Fluid dynamics
Fluidics
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Physics
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Summary:An important class of electrokinetic, microfluidic devices aims to pump and control electrolyte working liquids that have spatial gradients in conductivity. These high-gradient flows can become unstable under the application of a sufficiently strong electric field. In many of these designs, flow channels are thin in the direction orthogonal to the main flow and the conductivity gradient. Viscous stresses due to the presence of these walls introduce a stabilizing force that plays a major role in determining the overall instability. A thin channel model for fluid flow is developed and shown to provide good agreement with a complete three-dimensional model for channel aspect ratios ≲ 0.1 .
ISSN:1070-6631
1089-7666
DOI:10.1063/1.1823911