Particle Dynamics and Rapid Trapping in Electro-Osmotic Flow Around a Sharp Microchannel Corner

TL;DR

This study investigates how electro-osmotic flow around a sharp microchannel corner influences particle trapping, highlighting the roles of dielectrophoretic forces and induced-charge electro-osmotic flow in particle dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a combined hydrodynamic and electrokinetic model to explain particle trapping near microchannel corners under electric fields, incorporating dielectrophoretic effects and induced-charge flows.

Findings

Particles migrate towards the corner due to dielectrophoretic forces.

Particle trapping efficiency increases with stronger electric fields.

The model aligns with experimental observations of particle accumulation.

Abstract

We study here the curious particle dynamics resulting from electro-osmotic flow around a microchannel junction corner whose dielectric walls are weakly polarizable. The hydrodynamic velocity field is obtained via superposition of a linear irrotational term associated with the equilibrium zeta potentials of both the microchannel and particle surfaces and the non-linear induced-charge electro-osmotic flow which originates from the interaction of the externally applied electric field on the charge cloud it induces at the solid-liquid interface. The particle dynamics are analyzed by considering dielectrophoretic forces via the addition of a mobility term to the flow field in the limit of Stokes drag law. The former, non-divergence free term is responsible for migration of particles towards the sharp microchannel junction corner, where they can potentially accumulate. Experimental observations of particle trapping for various applied electric fields and microparticle size are rationalized in terms of the growing relative importance of the dielectrophoretic force and induced-charge contributions to the global velocity field with increasing intensity of the externally applied electric field.