Related papers: Controlling Colloidal Flow through a Microfluidic …

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…

We investigate both experimentally and theoretically the traffic of particles flowing in microfluidic obstacle networks. We show that the traffic dynamics is a non-linear process: the particle current does not scale with the particle…

We discuss the effect of an homogeneous flow in the aggregation process of colloidal magnetic particles at moderate concentration. Situations in which the presence of flow acts in favor of the chaining process: particles assemble into…

Modern micromanipulation techniques typically involve trapping using electromagnetic, acoustic or flow fields that produce stresses on the trapped particles thereby precluding stress-free manipulations. Here, we show that by employing…

We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…

Clogging of microchannels due to particle adhesion on the walls is a serious problem in many industrial processes. As such, the service life of microfluidic systems is determined by their ability to maintain flow without interruption over a…

Confined flows of particles can lead to clogging, and therefore failure, of various fluidic systems across many applications. As a result, design guidelines need to be developed to ensure that clogging is prevented or at least delayed. In…

We numerically examine clogging transitions for bidisperse disks flowing through a two dimensional periodic obstacle array. We show that clogging is a probabilistic event that occurs through a transition from a homogeneous flowing state to…

Colloidal particles can self-assemble into various ordered structures in fluid flows that have potential applications in biomedicine, materials synthesis and encryption. These dynamic processes are also of fundamental interest for probing…

We examine vortex flow states in periodic square pinning arrays with one row and one column of pinning sites removed to create an easy flow crossed channel geometry. When a drive is simultaneously applied along both major symmetry axes of…

We model collective disk flow though a square array of obstacles as the flow direction is changed relative to the symmetry directions of the array. At lower disk densities there is no clogging for any driving direction, but as the disk…

Microfluidic devices offer unique opportunities to directly observe multiphase flow in porous media. However, as a direct representation of flow in geological pore networks, conventional microfluidics face several challenges. One is that…

A flowing pair of particles in inertial microfluidics gives important insights into understanding and controlling the collective dynamics of particles like cells or droplets in microfluidic devices. They are applied in medical cell analysis…

The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…

Self-assembly of colloidal particles is a promising avenue to control the shape and dynamics of larger aggregates. However, achieving the necessary fine control over the dynamics and specificity of the bonds between such particles remains a…

The transport behavior of a system of gravitationally driven colloidal particles is investigated. The particle interactions are determined by the superparamagnetic behavior of the particles. They can thus be arranged in a crystalline order…

The flow-driven transport of interacting micron-sized particles occurs in many soft matter systems spanning from the translocation of proteins to moving emulsions in microfluidic devices. Here we combine experiments and theory to…

Blockage of pores by particles is found in many processes, including filtration and oil extraction. We present filtration experiments through a linear array of ten channels with one dimension which is sub-micron, through which a dilute…

The effect of curvature and how it induces and enhances the transport of colloidal particles driven through narrow channels represent an unexplored research avenue. Here we combine experiments and simulations to investigate the dynamics of…

We investigate models in which blocking can interrupt a particulate flow process at any time. Filtration, and flow in micro/nano-channels and traffic flow are examples of such processes. We first consider concurrent flow models where…