Related papers: Osmosis, from molecular insights to large-scale ap…
Water flow in plant tissues takes place in two different physical domains separated by semipermeable membranes: cell insides and cell walls. The assembly of all cell insides and cell walls are termed symplast and apoplast, respectively.…
From microscopic fungi to colossal whales, fluidic ejections are a universal and intricate phenomenon in biology, serving vital functions such as animal excretion, venom spraying, prey hunting, spore dispersal, and plant guttation. This…
Nonlinear electrokinetic phenomena, where electrically driven fluid flows depend nonlinearly on the applied voltage, are commonly encountered in aqueous suspensions of colloidal particles. A prime example is the induced-charge…
A very simple model for cell swelling by osmosis is introduced, resulting in a parabolic free boundary problem. In case of radially symmetric initial conditions, it is shown that the model can be viewed as a gradient flow involving entropy,…
We demonstrate that "moderate" departures from the no-slip hydrodynamic boundary condition (hydrodynamic slip lengths in the nanometer range) can result in a very large enhancement - up to two orders of magnitude- of most interfacially…
Osmotic transport in nanoconfined aqueous electrolytes provides new venues for water desalination and "blue energy" harvesting; the osmotic response of nanofluidic systems is controlled by the interfacial structure of water and electrolyte…
A nonlinear kinetic exclusion model is used to study osmosis and pressure driven flows through nearly single file pores such as antibiotic channels, aquaporins, zeolites and nanotubules. Two possible maxima in the steady state flux as a…
Metabolic substrates, such as oxygen and glucose, are rapidly delivered to the cell through filtration across microvessels walls. Modelling this important process is complicated by the coupling between flow and transport equations, which…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the behavior of closely-fitting spherical and ellipsoidal particles moving through a fluid-filled cylinder at nanometer scales. The particle, the cylinder wall and the fluid solvent are all…
The rectification of electro-osmotic flows is important in micro/nano fluidics applications such as micro-pumps and energy conversion devices. Here, we propose a simple electro-osmotic diode in which colloidal particles are contained…
The proper application of the virial theorem to the origin of osmotic pressure provides a simple, vivid and complete explanation of the physical processes involved; osmosis is driven by differential solvent pressures. This simple and…
We give a general, physical description of ``induced-charge electro-osmosis'' (ICEO), the nonlinear electrokinetic slip at a polarizable surface, in the context of some new techniques for microfluidic pumping and mixing. ICEO generalizes…
When colloids flow in a narrow channel, the transport efficiency is controlled by the non-equilibrium interplay between colloid-wall interactions and hydrodynamics. In this paper, a general, unifying description of colloidal dispersion flow…
In this paper, we explore osmotic transport by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We first consider osmosis through a membrane, and investigate the reflection coefficient of an imperfectly semi-permeable membrane, in the dilute…
Electro- and diffusio- phoresis of particles correspond respectively to the transport of particles under electric field and solute concentration gradients. Such interfacial transport phenomena take their origin in a diffuse layer close to…
As solute molecules permeate into a vesicle due to a concentration difference across its membrane, the vesicle swells through osmosis. The swelling can be divided into two stages: (a) an "ironing" stage, where the volume-to-area ratio of…
We consider a thermodynamic state of a solvent and solution separated with an elastic semipermeable membrane in a box with a constant volume and the relevance of this simple model for the water uptake in tall trees. Under moderate…
We describe the general phenomenon of `induced-charge electro-osmosis' (ICEO) -- the nonlinear electro-osmotic slip that occurs when an applied field acts on the ionic charge it {\sl induces} around a polarizable surface. Motivated by a…
When the concentration of electrolyte solution varies along the channel the forces arise that drag the fluid toward the higher or lower concentration region inducing a flow termed diffusio-osmotic. This article investigates a flow that…
Living cells and tissues can generate complex patterns of electric fields and fluid flows which can play important role in physiology. Both, fields and flows are rooted in ion transport across biological interfaces: cell membranes and…