Taylor dispersion in arbitrarily shaped axisymmetric channels

TL;DR

This paper develops a new analytical framework for predicting the transient evolution of solute dispersion in arbitrarily shaped axisymmetric channels, enabling better design of microfluidic and chemical separation devices.

Contribution

It derives coupled ODEs for solute dynamics in arbitrary channel geometries, extending Taylor dispersion analysis beyond long-term behavior.

Findings

Validated predictions with Brownian dynamics simulations.

Identified regimes of positive and negative axial growth.

Designed channel geometries for specific solute width distributions.

Abstract

Advective dispersion of solutes in long thin axisymmetric channels is important to the analysis and design of a wide range of devices, including chemical separation systems and microfluidic chips. Despite extensive analysis of Taylor dispersion in various scenarios, most studies focused on long-term dispersion behavior and cannot capture the transient evolution of solute zone across the spatial variations in the channel. In the current study, we analyze the Taylor-Aris dispersion for arbitrarily shaped axisymmetric channels. We derive an expression for solute dynamics in terms of two coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs). These two ODEs allow prediction of the time evolution of the mean location and axial (standard deviation) width of the solute zone as a function of the channel geometry. We compare and benchmark our predictions with Brownian dynamics simulations for a variety of cases including linearly expanding/converging channels and periodic channels. We also present an analytical description of the physical regimes of transient positive versus negative axial growth of solute width. Finally, to further demonstrate the utility of the analysis, we demonstrate a method to engineer channel geometries to achieve desired solute width distributions over space and time. We apply the latter analysis to generate a geometry that results in a constant axial width and a second geometry that results in a sinusoidal axial variance in space.