Effect of advection on transient ion concentration-polarization phenomenon.

Abstract

Here, we studied the effect of advection on the transient ion concentration-polarization phenomenon in microchannel-membrane systems. Specifically, the temporal evolution of the depletion layer in a system that supports net flow rates with varying Péclet values was examined. Experiments complemented with simplified analytical one-dimensional semi-infinite modeling and numerical simulations demonstrated either suppression or enhancement of the depletion layer propagation against or with the direction of the net flow, respectively. Of particular interest was the third-species fluorescent dye ion concentration-polarization dynamics which was further explained using two-dimensional numerical simulations that accounted for the device complex geometry.