Related papers: On the Physics of Size Selectivity
We introduce a statistical and linear response theory of selective conduction in biological ion channels with multiple binding sites and possible point mutations. We derive an effective grand-canonical ensemble and generalised Einstein…
Nanoscopic pores are used in various systems to attract nanoparticles. In general the behaviour is a result of two types of interactions: the material specific affinity and the solvent-mediated influence also called the depletion force. The…
Spontaneous segregation of run-and-tumble particles with different velocities in microchannels is investigated by numerical simulations. Self-propelled particles are known to accumulate in the proximity of walls. Here we show how fast…
We use interface-resolved simulations to study finite-size effects in turbulent channel flow of neutrally-buoyant spheres. Two cases with particle sizes differing by a factor of 2, at the same solid volume fraction of 20% and bulk Reynolds…
Within microcentrifuge devices, a microfluidic vortex separates larger particles from a heterogeneous suspension using inertial migration, a phenomenon that causes particles to migrate across streamlines. The ability to selectively capture…
Ions in water are the liquid of life. Life occurs almost entirely in 'salt water'. Water itself (without ions) is lethal to animal cells and damaging for most proteins. Water must contain the right ions in the right amounts if it is to…
Transport of spherical Brownian particles of finite size possessing radii through narrow channels with varying cross-section area is considered. Applying the so-called Fick-Jacobs approximation, i.e. assuming fast equilibration in…
We study the capture of particles advected by flows around a fixed cylinder. We derive theoretically the power law of the capture efficiency, usually obtained from data fitting only. Simulations of particle trajectories reveal that captured…
Describing the diffusion of particles through crowded, confined environments with which they can interact is of considerable biological and technological interest. Under conditions where the confinement dimensions become comparable to the…
We introduce a simple spherical model whose structural properties are similar to the ones generated by models with directional interactions, by employing a binary mixture of large and small hard spheres, with a square-well attraction acting…
Potassium (K-) channels catalyze K+ ion permeation across cellular membranes while simultaneously discriminating their permeation over Na+ ions by more than a factor of a thousand. Structural studies show bare K+ ions occupying the…
Using our generalized Fick-Jacobs approach [Martens et al., PRL 110, 010601 (2013); Martens et al., Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Topics 222, 2453-2463 (2013)] and extensive Brownian dynamics simulations, we study particle transport through…
Inertial lift forces are exploited within inertial microfluidic devices to position, segregate, and sort particles or droplets. However the forces and their focusing positions can currently only be predicted by numerical simulations, making…
Collective transport through channels shows surprising properties under one-dimensional confinement: particles in a single file exhibit sub-diffusive behavior, while liquid confinement causes distance-independent correlations between the…
The transport of particles through channels holds immense significance in physics, chemistry, and biological sciences. For instance, the motion of solutes through biological channels is facilitated by specialized proteins that create…
Classical molecular dynamics and electro-diffusion theories have achieved profound success in elucidating ion selectivity and gating mechanisms. However, reconciling strict selectivity with high flux permeation in Angstrom-scaled biological…
When two binary solutions are separated by a permeable barrier, the individual species typically diffuse and mix, dissipating their chemical potential gradients. However, we use model lattice simulations to show that single-file…
The macroscopic behavior of dense suspensions of neutrally-buoyant spheres in turbulent plane channel flow is examined. We show that particles larger than the smallest turbulence scales cause the suspension to deviate from the continuum…
The interaction of bodies in a fluid, mediated by hydrodynamic fluctuations and proposed by Dzyaloshinskii, Lifshitz, and Pitaevskii, is calculated exactly for parallel infinite planes and is shown to be attractive. The second mechanism of…
Past work has shown that ions can pass through a membrane more readily in one direction than the other. We demonstrate here in a model and an experiment that for a mixture of small and large particles such asymmetric diffusion can arise…