- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Electro-osmotic diode based on colloidal nano-valves between double membranes

Shihori Koyama, Daisuke Inoue, Akihisa Okada, and Hiroaki Yoshida*

  • Toyota Central R&D Labs, Inc., Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-0004, Japan

  • *h-yoshida@mosk.tytlabs.co.jp
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 3, 033289 – Published 30 September, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.033289

Abstract

The rectification of electro-osmotic flows is important in micro- and nano-fluidics applications such as micropumps and energy conversion devices. Here, we propose a simple electro-osmotic diode in which colloidal particles are contained between two parallel membranes with different pore densities. While the flow in the forward direction just pushes the colloidal particles toward the high-pore-density membrane, the backward flow is blocked by the particles near the low-pore-density membrane, which clog the pores. Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations show a strong nonlinear dependence on the electric field for both the electric current and electro-osmotic flow, indicating diode characteristics. A mathematical model to reproduce the electro-osmotic diode behavior is constructed, introducing an effective pore diameter as a model for pores clogged by the colloidal particles. Good agreement is obtained between the proposed model with estimated parameter values and the results of direct molecular dynamics simulations. The proposed electro-osmotic diode has potential application in downsized microfluidic pumps, e.g., the pump induced under AC electric fields.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (90)

  1. H. Daiguji, P. Yang, A. J. Szeri, and A. Majumdar, Electrochemomechanical energy conversion in nanofluidic channels, Nano Lett. 4, 2315 (2004).
  2. S. Liu, Q. Pu, L. Gao, C. Korzeniewski, and C. Matzke, From nanochannel-induced proton conduction enhancement to a nanochannel-based fuel cell, Nano Lett. 5, 1389 (2005).
  3. C. R. Buie, J. D. Posner, T. Fabian, S.-W. Cha, D. Kim, F. B. Prinz, J. K. Eaton, and J. G. Santiago, Water management in proton exchange membrane fuel cells using integrated electroosmotic pumping, J. Power Sources 161, 191 (2006).
  4. P. S. Dittrich and A. Manz, Lab-on-a-chip: Microfluidics in drug discovery, Nat. Rev. Drug Discovery 5, 210 (2006).
  5. F. H. J. van der Heyden, D. J. Bonthuis, D. Stein, C. Meyer, and C. Dekker, Electrokinetic energy conversion efficiency in nanofluidic channels, Nano Lett. 6, 2232 (2006).
  6. T. Fabian, R. O'Hayre, S. Litster, F. B. Prinz, and J. G. Santiago, Active water management at the cathode of a planar air-breathing polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell using an electroosmotic pump, J. Power Sources 195, 3640 (2010).
  7. A. Siria, P. Poncharal, A.-L. Biance, R. Fulcrand, X. Blase, S. T. Purcell, and L. Bocquet, Giant osmotic energy conversion measured in a single transmembrane boron nitride nanotube, Nature (London) 494, 455 (2013).
  8. K. Kamei, Y. Kato, Y. Hirai, S. Ito, J. Satoh, A. Oka, T. Tsuchiya, Y. Chen, and O. Tabata, Integrated heart/cancer on a chip to reproduce the side effects of anti-cancer drugs in vitro, RSC Adv. 7, 36777 (2017).
  9. B. Udugama, P. Kadhiresan, H. N. Kozlowski, A. Malekjahani, M. Osborne, V. Y. C. Li, H. Chen, S. Mubareka, J. B. Gubbay, and W. C. W. Chan, Diagnosing COVID-19: The disease and tools for detection, ACS Nano 14, 3822 (2020).
  10. D. J. Laser and J. G. Santiago, A review of micropumps, J. Micromech. Microeng. 14, R35 (2004).
  11. H. A. Stone, A. D. Stroock, and A. Ajdari, Engineering flows in small devices: Microfluidics toward a lab-on-a-chip, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 36, 381 (2004).
  12. T. M. Squires and S. R. Quake, Microfluidics: Fluid physics at the nanoliter scale, Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 977 (2005).
  13. R. B. Schoch, J. Han, and P. Renaud, Transport phenomena in nanofluidics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 839 (2008).
  14. L. Bocquet and E. Charlaix, Nanofluidics, from bulk to interfaces, Chem. Soc. Rev. 39, 1073 (2010).
  15. V. Pretorius, B. J. Hopkins, and J. D. Schieke, Electro-osmosis: A new concept for high-speed liquid chromatography, J. Chromatogr. A 99, 23 (1974).
  16. R. Sadr, M. Yoda, Z. Zheng, and A. T. Conlisk, An experimental study of electro-osmotic flow in rectangular microchannels, J. Fluid Mech. 506, 357 (2004).
  17. J. S. H. Lee and D. Li, Electroosmotic flow at a liquid-air interface, Microfluid. Nanofluid. 2, 361 (2006).
  18. S. J. Kim, Y.-C. Wang, J. H. Lee, H. Jang, and J. Han, Concentration Polarization and Nonlinear Electrokinetic Flow near a Nanofluidic Channel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 044501 (2007).
  19. S. Nam, I. Cho, J. Heo, G. Lim, M. Z. Bazant, D. J. Moon, G. Y. Sung, and S. J. Kim, Experimental Verification of Overlimiting Current by Surface Conduction and Electro-Osmotic Flow in Microchannels, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 114501 (2015).
  20. S. Yao and J. G. Santiago, Porous glass electroosmotic pumps: Theory, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 268, 133 (2003).
  21. S. Yao, D. E. Hertzog, S. Zeng, J. C. Mikkelsen, Jr., and J. G. Santiago, Porous glass electroosmotic pumps: Design and experiments, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 268, 143 (2003).
  22. S. K. Vajandar, D. Xu, D. A. Markov, J. P. Wikswo, W. Hofmeister, and D. Li, SiO2-coated porous anodic alumina membranes for high flow rate electroosmotic pumping, Nanotechnology 18, 275705 (2007).
  23. J. P. Urbanski, T. Thorsen, J. A. Levitan, and M. Z. Bazant, Fast ac electro-osmotic micropumps with nonplanar electrodes, Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 143508 (2006).
  24. J. S. Hu and C. Y. H. Chao, A study of the performance of microfabricated electroosmotic pump, Sens. Actuators, A 135, 273 (2007).
  25. K. Bengtsson and N. D. Robinson, A large-area, all-plastic, flexible electroosmotic pump, Microfluid. Nanofluid. 21, 178 (2017).
  26. C.-Y. Wang, Y.-H. Liu, and C. C. Chang, Analytical solution of electro-osmotic flow in a semicircular microchannel, Phys. Fluids 20, 063105 (2008).
  27. M. Mao, J. D. Sherwood, and S. Ghosal, Electro-osmotic flow through a nanopore, J. Fluid Mech. 749, 167 (2014).
  28. J. D. Sherwood, M. Mao, and S. Ghosal, Electroosmosis in a finite cylindrical pore: Simple models of end effects, Langmuir 30, 9261 (2014).
  29. D. V. Melnikov, Z. K. Hulings, and M. E. Gracheva, Electro-osmotic flow through nanopores in thin and ultrathin membranes, Phys. Rev. E 95, 063105 (2017).
  30. R. Qiao and N. R. Aluru, Charge Inversion and Flow Reversal in a Nanochannel Electro-Osmotic Flow, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 198301 (2004).
  31. Y. Chen, Z. Ni, G. Wang, D. Xu, and D. Li, Electroosmotic flow in nanotubes with high surface charge densities, Nano Lett. 8, 42 (2008).
  32. B. Rotenberg and I. Pagonabarraga, Electrokinetics: Insights from simulation on the microscopic scale, Mol. Phys. 111, 827 (2013).
  33. H. Yoshida, H. Mizuno, T. Kinjo, H. Washizu, and J.-L. Barrat, Molecular dynamics simulation of electrokinetic flow of an aqueous electrolyte solution in nanochannels, J. Chem. Phys. 140, 214701 (2014).
  34. A. Ramos, H. Morgan, N. G. Green, A. González, and A. Castellanos, Pumping of liquids with traveling-wave electroosmosis, J. Appl. Phys. 97, 084906 (2005).
  35. C. C. Huang, M. Z. Bazant, and T. Thorsen, Ultrafast high-pressure AC electro-osmotic pumps for portable biomedical microfluidics, Lab Chip 10, 80 (2010).
  36. H. Sugioka and S. Segawa, Effective symmetry breaking of flow in AC electro-osmotic pump using a ratchet structure, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 88, 084602 (2019).
  37. X. Wu, P. Ramiah Rajasekaran, and C. R. Martin, An alternating current electroosmotic pump based on conical nanopore membranes, ACS Nano 10, 4637 (2016).
  38. W. Li, W. Wang, Q. Hou, Y. Yan, C. Dai, and J. Zhang, Alternating electric field-induced ion current rectification and electroosmotic pump in ultranarrow charged carbon nanocones, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 20, 27910 (2018).
  39. D. C. Duffy, J. C. McDonald, O. J. A. Schueller, and G. M. Whitesides, Rapid prototyping of microfluidic systems in poly(dimethylsiloxane), Anal. Chem. 70, 4974 (1998).
  40. Y. Tanaka, K. Morishima, T. Shimizu, A. Kikuchi, M. Yamato, T. Okano, and T. Kitamori, An actuated pump on-chip powered by cultured cardiomyocytes, Lab Chip 6, 362 (2006).
  41. K. Loutherback, J. Puchalla, R. H. Austin, and J. C. Sturm, Deterministic Microfluidic Ratchet, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 045301 (2009).
  42. E. C. Yusko, R. An, and M. Mayer, Electroosmotic flow can generate ion current rectification in nano- and micropores, ACS Nano 4, 477 (2010).
  43. Q. Guo, S. M. McFaul, and H. Ma, Deterministic microfluidic ratchet based on the deformation of individual cells, Phys. Rev. E 83, 051910 (2011).
  44. G. Pérez-Mitta, W. A. Marmisollé, C. Trautmann, M. E. Toimil-Molares, and O. Azzaroni, An all-plastic field-effect nanofluidic diode gated by a conducting polymer layer, Adv. Mater. 29, 1700972 (2017).
  45. S. Marbach and L. Bocquet, Active sieving across driven nanopores for tunable selectivity, J. Chem. Phys. 147, 154701 (2017).
  46. M. J. Skaug, C. Schwemmer, S. Fringes, C. D. Rawlings, and A. W. Knoll, Nanofluidic rocking Brownian motors, Science 359, 1505 (2018).
  47. V. V. R. Nandigana, K. Jo, A. Timperman, and N. R. Aluru, Asymmetric-fluidic-reservoirs induced high rectification nanofluidic diode, Sci. Rep. 8, 13941 (2018).
  48. A. C. Lamont, A. T. Alsharhan, and R. D. Sochol, Geometric determinants of in-situ direct laser writing, Sci. Rep. 9, 394 (2019).
  49. K. Namura, S. Imafuku, S. Kumar, K. Nakajima, M. Sakakura, and M. Suzuki, Direction control of quasi-stokeslet induced by thermoplasmonic heating of a water vapor microbubble, Sci. Rep. 9, 4770 (2019).
  50. M. Hayakawa, Y. Kishino, and M. Takinoue, Collective ratchet transport generated by particle crowding under asymmetric sawtooth-shaped static potential, Adv. Intel. Sys. 2, 2000031 (2020).
  51. I. W. Leong, M. Tsutsui, S. Murayama, Y. He, and M. Taniguchi, Electroosmosis-driven nanofluidic diodes, J. Phys. Chem. B 124, 7086 (2020).
  52. Z. Siwy, P. Apel, D. Dobrev, R. Neumann, R. Spohr, C. Trautmann, and K. Voss, Ion transport through asymmetric nanopores prepared by ion track etching, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. B 208, 143 (2003).
  53. Z. Siwy, P. Apel, D. Baur, D. D. Dobrev, Y. E. Korchev, R. Neumann, R. Spohr, C. Trautmann, and K.-O. Voss, Preparation of synthetic nanopores with transport properties analogous to biological channels, Surf. Sci. 532-535, 1061 (2003).
  54. Z. Siwy, I. D. Kosińska, A. Fuliński, and C. R. Martin, Asymmetric Diffusion through Synthetic Nanopores, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 048102 (2005).
  55. Z. S. Siwy, Ion-current rectification in nanopores and nanotubes with broken symmetry, Adv. Funct. Mater. 16, 735 (2006).
  56. L.-J. Cheng and L. J. Guo, Nanofluidic diodes, Chem. Soc. Rev. 39, 923 (2010).
  57. L. Jubin, A. Poggioli, A. Siria, and L. Bocquet, Dramatic pressure-sensitive ion conduction in conical nanopores, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 115, 4063 (2018).
  58. S. N. Bush, T. T. Volta, and C. R. Martin, Chemical sensing and chemoresponsive pumping with conical-pore polymeric membranes, Nanomaterials 10, 571 (2020).
  59. S. Umehara, N. Pourmand, C. D. Webb, R. W. Davis, K. Yasuda, and M. Karhanek, Current rectification with poly-L-lysine-coated quartz nanopipettes, Nano Lett. 6, 2486 (2006).
  60. N. Sa and L. A. Baker, Experiment and simulation of ion transport through nanopipettes of well-defined conical geometry, J. Electrochem. Soc. 160, H376 (2013).
  61. X. L. Deng, T. Takami, J. W. Son, E. J. Kang, T. Kawai, and B. H. Park, Effect of concentration gradient on ionic current rectification in polyethyleneimine modified glass nano-pipettes, Sci. Rep. 4, 4005 (2014).
  62. Y. Li, D. Wang, M. M. Kvetny, W. Brown, J. Liu, and G. Wang, History-dependent ion transport through conical nanopipettes and the implications in energy conversion dynamics at nanoscale interfaces, Chem. Sci. 6, 588 (2015).
  63. W. Brown, Y. Li, R. Yang, D. Wang, M. Kvetny, H. Zheng, and G. Wang, Deconvolution of electroosmotic flow in hysteresis ion transport through single asymmetric nanopipettes, Chem. Sci. 11, 5950 (2020).
  64. Y. Saito, K. Hamaguchi, K. Hata, K. Uchida, Y. Tasaka, F. Ikazaki, M. Yumura, A. Kasuya, and Y. Nishina, Conical beams from open nanotubes, Nature (London) 389, 554 (1997).
  65. Z. Siwy, E. Heins, C. C. Harrell, P. Kohli, and C. R. Martin, Conical-nanotube ion-current rectifiers: The role of surface charge, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 10850 (2004).
  66. H. Daiguji, Y. Oka, and K. Shirono, Nanofluidic diode and bipolar transistor, Nano Lett. 5, 2274 (2005).
  67. R. Karnik, C. Duan, K. Castelino, H. Daiguji, and A. Majumdar, Rectification of ionic current in a nanofluidic diode, Nano Lett. 7, 547 (2007).
  68. I. Vlassiouk and Z. S. Siwy, Nanofluidic diode, Nano Lett. 7, 552 (2007).
  69. L.-J. Cheng and L. J. Guo, Ionic current rectification, breakdown, and switching in heterogeneous oxide nanofluidic devices, ACS Nano 3, 575 (2009).
  70. C. B. Picallo, S. Gravelle, L. Joly, E. Charlaix, and L. Bocquet, Nanofluidic Osmotic Diodes: Theory and Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 244501 (2013).
  71. S. Prakash, H. A. Zambrano, M. Fuest, C. Boone, E. Rosenthal-Kim, N. Vasquez, and A. T. Conlisk, Electrokinetic transport in silica nanochannels with asymmetric surface charge, Microfluid. Nanofluid. 19, 1455 (2015).
  72. W. Guan, R. Fan, and M. A. Reed, Field-effect reconfigurable nanofluidic ionic diodes, Nat. Commun. 2, 506 (2011).
  73. S. Wu, F. Wildhaber, O. Vazquez-Mena, A. Bertsch, J. Brugger, and P. Renaud, Facile fabrication of nanofluidic diode membranes using anodic aluminium oxide, Nanoscale 4, 5718 (2012).
  74. S. Wu, F. Wildhaber, A. Bertsch, J. Brugger, and P. Renaud, Field effect modulated nanofluidic diode membrane based on Al2O3/W heterogeneous nanopore arrays, Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 213108 (2013).
  75. A. Yaroshchuk, E. E. Licón, E. K. Zholkovskiy, M. P. Bondarenko, and T. Heldal, Asymmetric electroosmotic pumping across porous media sandwiched with perforated ion-exchange membranes, Faraday Discuss. 199, 175 (2017).
  76. V. Tesař, Valve-less rectification pumps, in Encyclopedia of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, edited by D. Li (Springer, Boston, MA, 2008).
  77. S. M. McFaul, B. K. Lin, and H. Ma, Cell separation based on size and deformability using microfluidic funnel ratchets, Lab Chip 12, 2369 (2012).
  78. Y. Yoon, S. Kim, J. Lee, J. Choi, R.-K. Kim, S.-J. Lee, O. Sul, and S.-B. Lee, Clogging-free microfluidics for continuous size-based separation of microparticles, Sci. Rep. 6, 26531 (2016).
  79. C. Wang, L. Wang, X. Zhu, Y. Wang, and J. Xue, Low-voltage electroosmotic pumps fabricated from track-etched polymer membranes, Lab Chip 12, 1710 (2012).
  80. S. A. Miller, V. Y. Young, and C. R. Martin, Electroosmotic flow in template-prepared carbon nanotube membranes, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 123, 12335 (2001).
  81. E. Secchi, S. Marbach, A. Niguès, D. Stein, A. Siria, and L. Bocquet, Massive radius-dependent flow slippage in carbon nanotubes, Nature (London) 537, 210 (2016).
  82. T. Ma, J.-M. Janot, and S. Balme, Track-etched nanopore/membrane: From fundamental to applications, Small Methods 4, 2000366 (2020).
  83. J. Han, J. Fu, and R. B. Schoch, Molecular sieving using nanofilters: Past, present and future, Lab Chip 8, 23 (2007).
  84. V. S. Murthy, J. N. Cha, G. D. Stucky, and M. S. Wong, Charge-driven flocculation of poly (L-lysine) gold nanoparticle assemblies leading to hollow microspheres, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 5292 (2004).
  85. A. A. Vertegel, R. W. Siegel, and J. S. Dordick, Silica nanoparticle size influences the structure and enzymatic activity of adsorbed lysozyme, Langmuir 20, 6800 (2004).
  86. V. Tohver, J. E. Smay, A. Braem, P. V. Braun, and J. A. Lewis, Nanoparticle halos: A new colloid stabilization mechanism, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98, 8950 (2001).
  87. See http://lammps.sandia.gov for the code.
  88. R. W. Hockney and J. W. Eastwood, Computer Simulation Using Particles (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1988).
  89. H. Yoshida, T. Kinjo, and H. Washizu, Coupled lattice Boltzmann method for simulating electrokinetic flows: A localized scheme for the Nernst-Plank model, Commun. Nonlinear Sci. Numer. Simulat. 19, 3570 (2014).
  90. R. A. Sampson, XII. On Stokes's current function, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 182, 449 (1891).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 3, 033289– Published 30 September, 2021
  • Received 31 May 2021
  • Accepted 7 September 2021
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation