Thermal effects on mixed electro-osmotic and pressure-driven flows in triangle microchannels

Abstract

A numerical investigation on the mixed electro-osmotic and pressure-driven flows in triangle microchannels with constant wall temperature is reported in the present study. The Galerkin method is employed to solve the Poisson equation, energy equation and Navier–Stokes equations for the flow driven by electro-osmotic and pressure gradient synchronously under the conditions of favorable pressure gradients and backpressure gradients. The physical properties of the electrolyte solution are considered to be varying with the temperature, and the dimensionless velocity profile, dimensionless temperature profile as well as dimensionless mass flux of the electrolyte solution are obtained. Furthermore, the parameters studies including pressure gradient, length ratio and Joule heating on mass flux of the electro-osmotic flows are performed, respectively. The numerical results show that a large Joule number leads to large dimensionless mass flux and dimensionless temperature of the electrolytic solution in the triangular microchannels for both conditions. For the electro-osmotic flows under the favorable pressure gradient, the increase in dimensionless mass flux resulted from Joule heating is enlarged with increasing pressure gradient and length ratio. However, for the electro-osmotic flows under the backpressure gradient, Joule heating results in a reverse flow in the channel, and the dimensionless mass flux of the reverse flow increases with increasing backward pressure gradient and decreasing length ratio. It is further found that the Joule heating induces a more significant increase in the dimensionless mass flux under favorable pressure gradient compared with that under backpressure gradient.