Electrokinetic and Electroconvective Effects in Ternary Electrolyte Near Ion-Selective Microsphere.

The paper presents theoretical and experimental investigations of the behavior of an electrolyte solution with three types of ions near an ion-selective microparticle with electrokinetically and pressure-driven flow. A special experimental cell has been developed for the investigations. An anion-selective spherical particle composed of ion-exchange resin is fixed in the center of the cell.

Electric-permittivity-based instability of two dielectric miscible liquids under DC field.

This paper considers the mixing of two dielectric miscible viscous liquids with different electric permittivities bounded by solid walls in an external electric field normal to the interface of the liquids. The mutual diffusion of these two liquids leads to the formation of an unsteady self-similar 1D diffusion layer. This layer is found to be unstable to the perturbations of the interface.

Novel electroosmotic micromixer configuration based on ion-selective microsphere.

In this paper, a micromixer of a new configuration is presented, consisting of a spherical chamber in the center of which an ion-selective microsphere is placed. Stratified liquid is introduced through the chamber via inlet and outlet holes under an external pressure gradient and an external electric field is directed in such a way that the resulting electroosmotic flow is directed against the pressure-driven flow, resulting in mixing. The investigation is carried out by direct numerical simulation on a super-computer.

Transitions and Instabilities in Imperfect Ion-Selective Membranes.

Numerical investigation of the underlimiting, limiting, and overlimiting current modes and their transitions in imperfect ion-selective membranes with fluid flow through permitted through the membrane is presented. The system is treated as a three layer composite system of electrolyte-porous membrane-electrolyte where the Nernst-Planck-Poisson-Stokes system of equations is used in the electrolyte, and the Darcy-Brinkman approach is employed in the nanoporous membrane. In order to resolve thin Debye and Darcy layers, quasi-spectral methods are applied using Chebyshev polynomials for their accumulation of zeros and, hence, best resolution in the layers.

Tonks-Frenkel instability in electrolyte under high-frequency AC electric fields.

The instability of an electrolyte surface to a high-frequency, 10 to 200kHz, electric field, normal to the interface is investigated theoretically. From a practical viewpoint, such a high frequency leads to the absence of undesired electrochemical reactions and provides an additional control parameter. The theory of unsteady electric double layer by Barrero and Ramos is exploited.