Molecular Dipole Osmosis Based on Induced Charge Electro-Osmosis

Abstract

We propose a novel mechanism of producing a large nonlinear electrokinetic vortex flow around a nonconductive polar molecule in an electrolyte. That is, a large nonlinear electrokinetic slip velocity is derived by considering a local giant permittivity due to a molecular electric dipole moment with induced-charge electro-osmosis (ICEO). Different from the conventional ICEO theory, our theory predicts that a nonconductive biomaterial, such as a base of a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule, has a significantly high ICEO flow velocity because of its large local permittivity. We consider that our findings will contribute markedly to promising biomedical applications.