# Recent advances in liquid mixtures in electric fields

## TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical and experimental advances in understanding how electric fields induce shape changes and phase separation in liquids, especially focusing on initially miscible liquids that demix under electric influence.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the mechanisms and conditions for electric-field-induced demixing in liquids, emphasizing the roles of dielectric properties and electrode geometry.

## Key findings

- Electric fields can cause shape changes in droplets due to interfacial forces.
- Field gradients can induce demixing in initially miscible liquids.
- Electro prewetting transitions are relevant in colloid stabilization and membrane gating.

## Abstract

When immiscible liquids are subject to electric fields interfacial forces arise due to a difference in the permittivity or the conductance of the liquids, and these forces lead to shape change in droplets or to interfacial instabilities. In this Topical Review we discuss recent advances in the theory and experiments of liquids in electric fields with an emphasis on liquids which are initially miscible and demix under the influence of an external field. In purely dielectric liquids demixing occurs if the electrode geometry leads to sufficiently large field gradients. In polar liquids field gradients are prevalent due to screening by dissociated ions irrespective of the electrode geometry. We examine the conditions for these "electro prewetting" transitions and highlight few possible systems where they might be important, such as in stabilization of colloids and in gating of pores in membranes.