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Electrokinetic Motions of Colloidal Particles and Polymeric Fluid Mechanics

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A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 3856

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Eric Lee

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Guest Editor

Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
Interests: electrokinetic motions; micro- and nanotechnology; polymeric fluid mechanics; AI and machine learning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Electrokinetic motions of colloidal particles such as electrophoresis, diffusiophoresis, and dielectrophoresis have wide applications in various fields, ranging from drug delivery in biomedical practice, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in petroleum industry, microfluidic and nanofluidic operations in biochemical analyses, and so on. There have been a surge of research endeavors recently reporting novel new applications utilizing electrokinetic motions of colloidal particles. Moreover, in addition to the traditional Newtonian fluid, polymeric medium such as the filling solution used in capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) with linear polymers dissolved in a Newtonian solvent is frequently encountered in practice as well. Moreover, ionic liquids have been involved in many recent applications of colloidal science as an environment-friendly green solvent. Indeed a new horizon is looming to extend the conventional scope of the colloidal technology. We thus propose here to edit a special edition on electrokinetic motions of colloidal particles, focusing on possible further extensions of this conventional technology both in terms of novel new applications and unconventional non-rigid “soft” particles, such as liquid droplets, core-shell type soft particles, porous particles, and so on. Both experimental and theoretical works are welcomed.

Topics of interest include, but not limited to, the following fields:

(1) Electrophoresis: Fundamentals and applications

(2) Diffusiophoresis: Fundamentals and applications

(3) Dielectrophoresis: Fundamentals and applications

(4) Microfluidic and nanofluidic operations and applications

(5) Electrokinetic motions of liquid droplets in general

(6) Electrokinetic motions of polymeric liquid droplets in particular

(7) Electrokinetic motions of core-shell type soft particles

(8) Electrokinetic motions of porous particles

(9) Electrokinetic motions of colloidal particles involving ionic liquids

(10) Other types of electrokinetic motions of colloidal particles.

Prof. Dr. Eric Lee
Guest Editor

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Keywords

electrophoresis
diffusiophoresis
dielectrophoresis
micro- and nanofluidics
liquid droplets
polymeric fluid mechanics
ionic liquids

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 2588 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Diffusiophoresis of a Weakly Charged Liquid Metal Droplet

by Leia Fan, Jason Lin, Annie Yu, Kevin Chang, Jessica Tseng, Judy Su, Amy Chang, Shirley Lu and Eric Lee

Molecules 2023, 28(9), 3905; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28093905 - 05 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1376

Abstract

Diffusiophoresis of a weakly charged liquid metal droplet (LMD) is investigated theoretically, motivated by its potential application in drug delivery. A general analytical formula valid for weakly charged condition is adopted to explore the droplet phoretic behavior. We determined that a liquid metal droplet, which is a special category of the conducting droplet in general, always moves up along the chemical gradient in sole chemiphoresis, contrary to a dielectric droplet where the droplet tends to move down the chemical gradient most of the time. This suggests a therapeutic nanomedicine such as a gallium LMD is inherently superior to a corresponding dielectric liposome droplet in drug delivery in terms of self-guiding to its desired destination. The droplet moving direction can still be manipulated via the polarity dependence; however, there should be an induced diffusion potential present in the electrolyte solution under consideration, which spontaneously generates an extra electrophoresis component. Moreover, the smaller the conducting liquid metal droplet is, the faster it moves in general, which means a smaller LMD nanomedicine is preferred. These findings demonstrate the superior features of an LMD nanomedicine in drug delivery. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electrokinetic Motions of Colloidal Particles and Polymeric Fluid Mechanics)

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9 pages, 499 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Approximate Analytic Expression for the Time-Dependent Transient Electrophoretic Mobility of a Spherical Colloidal Particle

by Hiroyuki Ohshima

Molecules 2022, 27(16), 5108; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27165108 - 11 Aug 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1130

Abstract

The general expression is derived for the Laplace transform of the time-dependent transient electrophoretic mobility (with respect to time) of a spherical colloidal particle when a step electric field is applied. The transient electrophoretic mobility can be obtained by the numerical inverse Laplace transformation method. The obtained expression is applicable for arbitrary particle zeta potential and arbitrary thickness of the electrical double layer around the particle. For the low potential case, this expression gives the result obtained by Huang and Keh. On the basis of the obtained general expression for the Laplace transform of the transient electrophoretic mobility, we present an approximation method to avoid the numerical inverse Laplace transformation and derive a simple approximate analytic mobility expression for a weakly charged particle without involving numerical inverse Laplace transformations. The transient electrophoretic mobility can be obtained directly from this approximate mobility expression without recourse to the numerical inverse Laplace transformation. The results are found to be in excellent agreement with the exact numerical results obtained by Huang and Keh. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electrokinetic Motions of Colloidal Particles and Polymeric Fluid Mechanics)

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Review

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37 pages, 7671 KiB

Open AccessReview

Diffusiophoresis of Macromolecules within the Framework of Multicomponent Diffusion

by Onofrio Annunziata

Molecules 2024, 29(6), 1367; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29061367 - 19 Mar 2024

Viewed by 778

Abstract

Diffusiophoresis is the isothermal migration of a colloidal particle through a liquid caused by a cosolute concentration gradient. Although diffusiophoresis was originally introduced using hydrodynamics, it can also be described by employing the framework of multicomponent diffusion. This not only enables the extraction of diffusiophoresis coefficients from measured multicomponent-diffusion coefficients but also their theoretical interpretation using fundamental thermodynamic and transport parameters. This review discusses the connection of diffusiophoresis with the 2 × 2 diffusion-coefficient matrix of ternary liquid mixtures. Specifically, diffusiophoresis is linked to the cross-term diffusion coefficient characterizing diffusion of colloidal particles due to cosolute concentration gradient. The other cross-term, which describes cosolute diffusion due to the concentration gradient of colloidal particles, is denoted as osmotic diffusion. Representative experimental results on diffusiophoresis and osmotic diffusion for polyethylene glycol and lysozyme in the presence of aqueous salts and osmolytes are described. These data were extracted from ternary diffusion coefficients measured using precision Rayleigh interferometry at 25 °C. The preferential-hydration and electrophoretic mechanisms responsible for diffusiophoresis are examined. The connection of diffusiophoresis and osmotic diffusion to preferential-interaction coefficients, Onsager reciprocal relations, Donnan equilibrium and Nernst–Planck equations are also discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electrokinetic Motions of Colloidal Particles and Polymeric Fluid Mechanics)

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