Modeling of compressible electrolytes with phase transition

TL;DR

This paper develops a thermodynamically consistent diffuse interface model for compressible electrolytes with phase transitions, capturing complex multi-component fluid behaviors and electrochemical reactions, and analyzes its sharp interface limits.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized diffuse interface model for multi-component electrolytes with phase transitions, including electrochemical effects, and derives sharp interface limits using asymptotic analysis.

Findings

Recovery of a generalized Allen-Cahn/Euler/Poisson system in the sharp interface limit.

Derivation of interfacial conditions satisfying generalized Gibbs-Thomson and Young-Laplace laws.

Analysis of two scaling regimes for the coupling between Poisson equation and interface width.

Abstract

A novel thermodynamically consistent diffuse interface model is derived for compressible electrolytes with phase transitions. The fluid mixtures may consist of N constituents with the phases liquid and vapor, where both phases may coexist. In addition, all constituents may consist of polarizable and magnetizable matter. Our introduced thermodynamically consistent diffuse interface model may be regarded as a generalized model of Allen-Cahn/Navier-Stokes/Poisson type for multi-component flows with phase transitions and electrochemical reactions. For the introduced diffuse interface model, we investigate physically admissible sharp interface limits by matched asymptotic techniques. We consider two scaling regimes, i.e. a non-coupled and a coupled regime, where the coupling takes place between the smallness parameter in the Poisson equation and the width of the interface. We recover in the sharp interface limit a generalized Allen-Cahn/Euler/Poisson system for mixtures with electrochemical reactions in the bulk phases equipped with admissible interfacial conditions. The interfacial conditions satisfy, for instance, a generalized Gibbs-Thomson law and a dynamic Young-Laplace law.