Electrokinetic instabilities of non-dilute colloidal suspensions

Abstract

An experimental investigation of electrokinetic instabilities (EKIs) of non-dilute colloidal suspensions in microchannels is presented. The addition of charged colloidal particles to a solution can alter the solution's electrical conductivity and permittivity as well as the average particle electrophoretic mobility. In this work, a colloidal (500 nm polystyrene) volume fraction gradient is achieved at the intersection of a Y-shaped polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannel. The flow becomes unstable when the electroviscous stretching and folding of the conductivity and permittivity interfaces exceed the dissipative effects of viscous forces and particle diffusion. The suspension conductivity as a function of the particle volume fraction is presented. The critical conditions required for flow instability are measured along with a scaling analysis which shows that the flow becomes unstable due to a coupling of applied electric fields and the electrical conductivity and permittivity gradients in the flow. The flow becomes unstable at a critical electric Rayleigh number ofRae= 1.8 × 105for a wide range of applied electric fields spanning three orders of magnitude and colloid volume fractions varying two orders of magnitude. EKIs of non-dilute colloidal suspensions may be important for applications such as the electrophoretic deposition of micropatterned colloidal assemblies, electrorheological devices and on-chip electrokinetic (EK) manipulation of colloids.