Determining phoretic mobilities with Onsager's reciprocal relations: Electro- and thermophoresis revisited.

Abstract

We use a hydrodynamic reciprocal approach to phoretic motion to derive general expressions for the electrophoretic and thermophoretic mobility of weakly charged colloids in aqueous electrolyte solutions. Our approach shows that phoretic motion can be understood in terms of the interfacial transport of thermodynamic excess quantities that arises when a colloid is kept stationary inside a bulk fluid flow. The obtained expressions for the mobilities are extensions of previously known results as they can account for different hydrodynamic boundary conditions at the colloidal surface, irrespective of how the colloid-fluid interaction range compares to the colloidal radius.