Self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle in a shear-thinning fluid

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Hauptverfasser: Zhu, Guangpu, van Gogh, Brandon, Zhu, Lailai, Pak, On Shun, Man, Yi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Zhu, Guangpu
van Gogh, Brandon
Zhu, Lailai
Pak, On Shun
Man, Yi
author_facet Zhu, Guangpu
van Gogh, Brandon
Zhu, Lailai
Pak, On Shun
Man, Yi
contents Shear-thinning viscosity is a non-Newtonian behaviour that active particles often encounter in biological fluids such as blood and mucus. The fundamental question of how this ubiquitous non-Newtonian rheology affects the propulsion of active particles has attracted substantial interest. In particular, spherical Janus particles driven by self-diffusiophresis, a major physico-chemical propulsion mechanism of synthetic active particles, were shown to always swim slower in a shear-thinning fluid than in a Newtonian fluid. In this work, we move beyond the spherical limit to examine the effect of particle eccentricity on self-diffusiophoretic propulsion in a shear-thinning fluid. We use a combination of asymptotic analysis and numerical simulations to show that shear-thinning rheology can enhance self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle, in stark contrast to previous findings for the spherical case. A systematic characterization of the dependence of the propulsion speed on the particle's active surface coverage has also uncovered an intriguing feature associated with the propulsion speeds of a pair of complementarily coated particles not previously reported. Symmetry arguments are presented to elucidate how this new feature emerges as a combined effect of anisotropy of the spheroidal geometry and nonlinearity in fluid rheology.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_09136
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle in a shear-thinning fluid
Zhu, Guangpu
van Gogh, Brandon
Zhu, Lailai
Pak, On Shun
Man, Yi
Fluid Dynamics
Soft Condensed Matter
Shear-thinning viscosity is a non-Newtonian behaviour that active particles often encounter in biological fluids such as blood and mucus. The fundamental question of how this ubiquitous non-Newtonian rheology affects the propulsion of active particles has attracted substantial interest. In particular, spherical Janus particles driven by self-diffusiophresis, a major physico-chemical propulsion mechanism of synthetic active particles, were shown to always swim slower in a shear-thinning fluid than in a Newtonian fluid. In this work, we move beyond the spherical limit to examine the effect of particle eccentricity on self-diffusiophoretic propulsion in a shear-thinning fluid. We use a combination of asymptotic analysis and numerical simulations to show that shear-thinning rheology can enhance self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle, in stark contrast to previous findings for the spherical case. A systematic characterization of the dependence of the propulsion speed on the particle's active surface coverage has also uncovered an intriguing feature associated with the propulsion speeds of a pair of complementarily coated particles not previously reported. Symmetry arguments are presented to elucidate how this new feature emerges as a combined effect of anisotropy of the spheroidal geometry and nonlinearity in fluid rheology.
title Self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle in a shear-thinning fluid
topic Fluid Dynamics
Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.09136