Related papers: Tunable transport in bi-disperse porous materials …
Stimuli-responsive materials that modify their shape in response to changes in environmental conditions -- such as solute concentration, temperature, pH, and stress -- are widespread in nature and technology. Applications include micro- and…
Membranes regulate transport in a wide variety of industrial and biological applications. The microscale geometry of the membrane can significantly affect overall transport through the membrane, but the precise nature of this multiscale…
We present pore-scale simulations of two-phase flows in a reconstructed fibrous porous layer. The three dimensional microstructure of the material, a fuel cell gas diffusion layer, is acquired via X-ray computed tomography and used as input…
Bacterial cellulose biofilms are complex networks of strong interwoven nanofibers that control transport and protect bacterial colonies in the film. Design of diverse applications of bacterial cellulose films also relies on understanding…
The problem of capillary transport in fibrous porous materials at low levels of liquid saturation has been addressed. It has been demonstrated, that the process of liquid spreading in this type of porous materials at low saturation can be…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
Equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the effect of phase transitions on the transport properties of highly-confined water between parallel graphene sheets. An abrupt reduction by several orders of magnitude in…
Many porous media are mixtures of inert and reactive materials, manifesting spatio-chemical heterogeneity. We study the evolution of scalar transport in a chemically heterogeneous material that mimics a green roof soil substrate,…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
The recent interest in using microorganisms for biofuels is motivation enough to study bioconvection and cell dispersion in tubes subject to imposed flow. To optimize light and nutrient uptake, many microorganisms swim in directions biased…
Nonwoven fibre networks underpin filtration, insulation and geotextiles, where liquid uptake, redistribution and release govern performance. In needle-punched felts, barbed needles mechanically entangle fibres and partially reorient them…
3D bicontinuous two-phase materials are increasingly gaining interest because of their unique multifunctional characteristics and advancements in techniques to fabricate them. Due to their complex topological and structural properties, it…
We consider a situation commonly encountered in microfluidics: two streams of miscible liquids are brought at a junction to flow side by side within a microchannel, allowing solutes to diffuse from one stream to the other and possibly…
The transport of individual entities through interconnected structures is a process of practical relevance both in biology and technology. Examples are given by diffusive dynamics of molecules in porous structures. In soft environments,…
We present the state-of-the-art theoretical modeling, molecular simulation, and coarse-graining strategies for the transport of gases and liquids in nanoporous materials (pore size 1-100 nm). Special emphasis is placed on the transport of…
The transport of deformable particles through porous media underlies a wealth of applications ranging from filtration to oil recovery to the transport and spreading of biological agents. Using direct numerical simulations, we analyze the…
We numerically examine the driven transport of an overdamped self-propelled particle through a two-dimensional array of circular obstacles. A detailed analysis of transport quantifiers (mobility and diffusivity) has been performed for two…
Capillarity-driven transport in nanoporous solids is widespread in nature and crucial for modern liquid-infused engineering materials. During imbibition, curved menisci driven by high negative Laplace pressures exert an enormous contractile…
Transport of liquid drops in fibrous media occurs in various engineering systems such as fog harvesting or cleaning of textiles. The ability to tune or to control liquid movement can increase the system efficiency and enable new engineering…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…