@article{8c0563ec13914934aed2ecfc16864e92,
title = "Accumulation of colloidal particles in flow junctions induced by fluid flow and diffusiophoresis",
abstract = "The flow of solutions containing solutes and colloidal particles in porous media is widely found in systems including underground aquifers, hydraulic fractures, estuarine or coastal habitats, water filtration systems, etc. In such systems, solute gradients occur when there is a local change in the solute concentration. While the effects of solute gradients have been found to be important for many applications, we observe an unexpected colloidal behavior in porous media driven by the combination of solute gradients and the fluid flow. When two flows with different solute concentrations are in contact near a junction, a sharp solute gradient is formed at the interface, which may allow strong diffusiophoresis of the particles directed against the flow. Consequently, the particles accumulate near the pore entrance, rapidly approaching the packing limit. These colloidal dynamics have important implications for the clogging of a porous medium, where particles that are orders of magnitude smaller than the pore width can accumulate and block the pores within a short period of time. We also show that this effect can be exploited as a useful tool for preconcentrating biomolecules for rapid bioassays.",
author = "Sangwoo Shin and Ault, {Jesse T.} and Warren, {Patrick B.} and Stone, {Howard A.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Sarangan Chari for stimulating discussions and Orest Shardt for kindly providing the image analysis code. We acknowledge Unilever Research and the Princeton Environmental Institute for support of this research. We thank the NSF (CBET–1702693) for partial support of this research. P. B. W. discloses a substantive stock holding in Unilever PLC. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published Funding Information: form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan [33]. Research sponsored by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy.",
year = "2017",
month = nov,
day = "16",
doi = "10.1103/PhysRevX.7.041038",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "7",
journal = "Physical Review X",
issn = "2160-3308",
publisher = "American Physical Society",
number = "4",
}