Electro-osmotic Instability of Concentration Enrichment in Curved Geometries for an Aqueous Electrolyte

Abstract

We report that an electro-osmotic instability of concentration enrichment in curved geometries for an aqueous electrolyte, as opposed to the well-known one, is initiated exclusively at the enriched interface (anode), rather than at the depleted one (cathode). For this instability, the limitation of unrealistically high material Peclet number in planar geometry is eliminated by the strong electric field arising from the line charge singularity. In a model setup of concentric circular electrodes, we show by stability analysis, numerical simulation, and experimental visualization that instability occurs at the inner anode, below a critical radius of curvature. The stability criterion is also formulated in terms of a critical electric field and extended to arbitrary (2d) geometries by conformal mapping. This discovery suggests that transport may be enhanced in processes limited by salt enrichment, such as reverse osmosis, by triggering this instability with needle-like electrodes.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Overlimiting current in a microchannel
• Equilibrium Electro-osmotic Instability
• Experimental Verification of Overlimiting Current by Surface Conduction and Electro-osmotic Flow in Microchannels
• Concentration polarization, surface currents, and bulk advection in a microchannel
• Dynamics of Conformal Maps for a Class of Non-Laplacian Growth Phenomena
• The driving factors of electro-convective instability in concentration polarization
• Deionization Shock Driven by Electroconvection in a Circular Channel