ac electrokinetic micropumps: The effect of geometrical confinement, Faradaic current injection, and nonlinear surface capacitance

Laurits Højgaard Olesen, Henrik Bruus, A. Ajdari

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    Abstract

    Recent experiments have demonstrated that ac electrokinetic micropumps permit integrable, local, and fast pumping (velocities similar to mm/s) with low driving voltage of a few volts only. However, they also displayed many quantitative and qualitative discrepancies with existing theories. We therefore extend the latter theories to account for three experimentally relevant effects: (i) vertical confinement of the pumping channel, (ii) Faradaic currents from electrochemical reactions at the electrodes, and (iii) nonlinear surface capacitance of the Debye layer. We report here that these effects indeed affect the pump performance in a way that we can rationalize by physical arguments.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalPhysical Review E
    Volume73
    Issue number5
    Pages (from-to)056313
    ISSN2470-0045
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2006

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright 2006 American Physical Society

    Keywords

    • DEVICES
    • FIELDS
    • POLARIZATION
    • PARTICLE
    • FLOW
    • ELECTRODE ARRAYS
    • LIMITING CURRENT
    • MICROELECTRODES

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