Theoretical analysis of thermophoretic experimental data

TL;DR

This paper develops a methodology to quantitatively compare thermophoretic theory with experimental data, specifically analyzing SDS micelles, to better understand particle behavior in temperature gradients.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to match thermophoretic theoretical models with experimental data, enhancing understanding of particle dynamics in temperature gradients.

Findings

Successful matching of theory with SDS micelle data

Quantitative insights into thermophoretic force and Soret coefficient

Improved understanding of thermophoresis in colloidal systems

Abstract

Thermophoresis is a transport phenomenon induced by a temperature gradient. Very small objects dispersed in a fluid medium and in a temperature gradient present a non homogeneous steady density. Analysing this phenomenon within the theoretical scenario of non interacting Brownian motion one can assume that those particles are driven by a spatially dependent mechanical force. This implies the existence of a potential which was derived in a previous work. From this potential the qualitative properties of the force and the Soret coefficient were obtained. Nevertheless a quantitative correlation between the theory and the experimental data were not consistently proved. Here it is presented a methodology to match this theory with the experimental data, which it is used to analyse the experimental information of sodium docecyl sulfate (SDS) micelles.