Phoretic self-propulsion: a mesoscopic description of reaction dynamics that powers motion

Abstract

The fabrication of synthetic self-propelled particles and the experimental investigations of their dynamics have stimulated interest in self-generated phoretic effects that propel nano- and micron-scale objects. Theoretical modeling of these phenomena is often based on a continuum description of the solvent for different phoretic propulsion mechanisms, including, self-electrophoresis, self-diffusiophoresis and self-thermophoresis. The work in this paper considers various types of catalytic chemical reaction at the motor surface and in the bulk fluid that come into play in mesoscopic descriptions of the dynamics. The formulation is illustrated by developing the mesoscopic reaction dynamics for exothermic and dissociation reactions that are used to power motor motion. The results of simulations of the self-propelled dynamics of composite Janus particles by these mechanisms are presented.

8 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Self-motile colloidal particles: from directed propulsion to random walk
• Propulsion of a molecular machine by asymmetric distribution of reaction--products
• Designing phoretic micro- and nano-swimmers
• Phoretic Motion of Spheroidal Particles Due To Self-Generated Solute Gradients
• Particle-Based Mesoscale Hydrodynamic Techniques

Cited by in corpus (19)

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• A Classical Density-Functional Theory for Describing Water Interfaces
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• Interactions in Active Colloids
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• Mechanochemical fluctuation theorem and thermodynamics of self-phoretic motors
• 'Rocket propulsion' of Janus micro-swimmers
• Microscopic and continuum descriptions of Janus motor fluid flow fields
• Effect of fluid-colloid interactions on the mobility of a thermophoretic microswimmer in non-ideal fluids
• Single particle motion and collective dynamics in Janus motor systems
• Dynamics of Janus motors with microscopically reversible kinetics
• Passive and active colloidal chemotaxis in a microfluidic channel: mesoscopic and stochastic models
• Self-organization in suspensions of end-functionalized semiflexible polymers under shear flow
• Simulation of microswimmer hydrodynamics with multiparticle collision dynamics
• RMPCDMD: Simulations of colloids with coarse-grained hydrodynamics, chemical reactions and external fields
• Clustering of chemically propelled nanomotors in chemically active environments
• Mesoscopic simulations of anisotropic chemically-powered nanomotors
• Control of active polymeric filaments by chemically-powered nanomotors
• Particle-Wall Alignment Interaction and Active Brownian Diffusion Through Narrow Channels