Abstract
The ionic current rectification (ICR) phenomenon generated by the geometrically asymmetric properties of conical nanochannels has attracted much attention, but previous studies have mainly focused on Newtonian fluids and fixed surface charge densities. In this study, the ICR characteristics of pH-regulated conical nanochannels with non-Newtonian fluids are investigated by numerical simulations, and the effects of solution pH, power-law index, and electrolyte concentration on the ionic current, rectification ratio, axial potential, ionic conductivity, ionic concentration, surface charge density, and radial velocity at the channel tip are discussed. The rectification effect of shear-thinning fluids is significantly lower than that of Newtonian and shear-thickening fluids at high solution pH and electrolyte concentration. At pH = 8, the surface charge density increases only 8.7 times when the electrolyte concentration is increased from 1 mM from 1000 mM. When the electrolyte concentration is 1 mM, the surface charge density at pH = 9 increases almost 30 times compared to that at pH = 5.
Published Version
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