Universal optimal geometry of minimal phoretic pumps

Abstract

Unlike pressure-driven flows, surface-mediated phoretic flows provide efficient means to drive fluid motion on very small scales. Colloidal particles covered with chemically-active patches with nonzero phoretic mobility (e.g. Janus particles) swim using self-generated gradients, and similar physics can be exploited to create phoretic pumps. Here we analyse in detail the design principles of phoretic pumps and show that for a minimal phoretic pump, consisting of 3 distinct chemical patches, the optimal arrangement of the patches maximizing the flow rate is universal and independent of chemistry.

8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Scientific Reports

References in corpus (4)

• Self-motile colloidal particles: from directed propulsion to random walk
• Designing phoretic micro- and nano-swimmers
• Self-propulsion of pure water droplets by spontaneous Marangoni stress driven motion
• Anisotropic thermophoresis

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Non-Newtonian effects on the slip and mobility of a self-propelling active particle
• Pumping and mixing in active pores
• Spontaneous onset of convection in a uniform phoretic channel
• Hydrodynamic Stokes flow induced by a chemically active patch imprinted on a planar wall
• Turning catalytically active pores into active pumps
• Writing in Water
• Diffusioosmotic corner flows