Analysis of electroviscous effects in electrolyte liquid flow through a heterogeneously charged uniform microfluidic device

Abstract Charge-heterogeneity (i.e., surface charge variation in the axial direction of the device) introduces non-uniformity in flow characteristics in the microfluidic device. Thus, it can be used for controlling practical microfluidic applications, such as mixing, mass, and heat transfer processes. This study has numerically investigated the charge-heterogeneity effects in the electroviscous (EV) flow of symmetric (1:1) electrolyte liquid through a uniform slit microfluidic device. The Poisson’s, Nernst-Planck (N-P), and Navier–Stokes (N-S) equations are numerically solved using the finite element method (FEM) to obtain the flow fields, such as total electrical potential ( U ), excess charge ( n * ), induced electric field strength ( E x ), and pressure ( P ) fields for following ranges of governing parameters: inverse Debye length (2 ≤ K ≤ 20), surface charge density (4 ≤ S 1 ≤ 16), and surface charge-heterogeneity ratio (0 ≤ S rh ≤ 2). Results have shown that the total potential (∣Δ U ∣) and pressure (∣Δ P ∣) drop maximally increase by 99.09% (from 0.1413 to 0.2812) (at K = 20, S 1 = 4) and 12.77% (from 5.4132 to 6.1045) (at K = 2, S 1 = 8), respectively with overall charge-heterogeneity (0 ≤ S rh ≤ 2). Electroviscous correction factor ( Y , i.e., ratio of effective to physical viscosity) maximally enhances by 12.77% (from 1.2040 to 1.3577) (at K = 2, S 1 = 8), 40.98% (from 1.0026 to 1.4135) (at S 1 = 16, S rh = 1.50), and 41.35% (from 1 to 1.4135) (at K = 2, S rh = 1.50), with the variation of S rh (from 0 to 2), K (from 20 to 2), and S 1 (from 0 to 16), respectively. Further, a simple pseudo-analytical model is developed to estimate the pressure drop in EV flow, accounting for the influence of charge-heterogeneity based on the Poiseuille flow in a uniform channel. This model predicts the pressure drop ± 2%–4% within the numerical results. The robustness and simplicity of this model enable the present numerical results for engineering and design aspects of microfluidic applications.