Effect of Microchannel Diameter on Electroosmotic Flow Hysteresis

An Eng Lim () and Shireen Goh
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An Eng Lim: Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), 20 Biopolis Way, #06-01 Centros, Singapore 138668, Singapore
Shireen Goh: Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), 20 Biopolis Way, #06-01 Centros, Singapore 138668, Singapore

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: Electroosmotic flow (EOF) commonly involves inhomogeneous fluids in practical applications. EOF hysteresis, which is defined as direction-dependent flow behavior, has been extensively investigated for dissimilar solution pair systems. Hitherto, there is no investigation being conducted to examine the effect of microchannel diameter on the hysteresis phenomenon. In this investigation, current monitoring experiments and finite element numerical simulations were performed to examine the intensification of the hysteretic behavior with reduction in the microchannel diameter. Three solution pairs were selected for the study, namely KCl–NaCl (dissimilar ionic species with similar concentration), NaCl and KCl (similar ionic species but different concentrations) solution pairs, with microchannels of 5 μm and 100 μm internal diameters. EOF hysteresis augmentation for reduced channel diameter (i.e., 5 μm microchannel) is due to the coupling effect of the resultant wider/tighter interfacial width and the minority pH-governing ion-driven hysteresis, which was earlier discovered to be the origin of EOF hysteresis. This investigation provides an appropriate understanding of the channel dimensional effect on EOF behavior involving multiple fluids, and the outcomes can potentially be implemented on chemical and biological microfluidic systems with adjustable throughput.

Keywords: microfluidics; electroosmotic flow; hysteresis; current monitoring technique; finite element simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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