Diffusiophoresis of a Highly Charged Porous Particle Induced by Diffusion Potential

Abstract

Diffusiophoresis, the motion of a colloidal particle in response to the concentration gradient of solutes in the suspending medium, is investigated theoretically on the basis of numerical computations in this study for charged porous particles, especially highly or extremely porous ones, focusing on the electrophoresis component induced by diffusion potential, which is generated spontaneously in a binary electrolyte solution where the diffusivities of the two ionic species are distinct. A benchmark carbonic acid solution of H(aq)+ and HCO3(aq)- is chosen to be the major suspending medium, as its large diffusion potential and remarkable performance in practical applications have been reported recently in the literature. More than 3 orders of magnitude increase in particle diffusiophoretic mobility is predicted under some circumstances, should the permeability of the particle increase 10-fold. Nonlinear effects such as the motion-deterring double-layer polarization effect pertinent to highly charged particles and the counterion condensation or shielding/screening effect pertinent to porous particles are investigated in particular for their impact on the particle motion, among other electrokinetic parameters examined. A visual demonstration of the nonlinear double-layer polarization is provided. Moreover, both the chemiphoresis and the electrophoresis components are explored and analyzed in detail. The results presented here can be applied in biochemical and biomedical fields involving DNAs and proteins, which can be modeled excellently as charged porous particles in their electrokinetic motion.