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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Elfego Ruiz GutierrezORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by American Chemical Society, 2021.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
The dynamic effect of an electric field on dielectric liquids is called liquid dielectrophoresis. It is widely used in several industrial and scientific applications, including inkjet printing, microfabrication, and optical devices. Numerical simulations of liquid-dielectrophoresis are necessary to understand the fundamental physics of the phenomenon, but also to explore situations that might be difficult or expensive to implement experimentally. However, such modeling is challenging, as one needs to solve the electrostatic and fluid dynamics equations simultaneously. Here, we formulate a new lattice–Boltzmann method capable of modeling the dynamics of immiscible dielectric fluids coupled with electric fields within a single framework, thus eliminating the need of using separate algorithms to solve the electrostatic and fluid dynamics equations. We validate the numerical method by comparing it with analytical solutions and previously reported experimental results. Beyond the benchmarking of the method, we study the spreading of a droplet using a dielectrowetting setup and quantify the mechanism driving the variation of the apparent contact angle of the droplet with the applied voltage. Our method provides a useful tool to study liquid-dielectrophoresis and can be used to model dielectric fluids in general, such as liquid–liquid and liquid–gas systems.
Author(s): Ruiz-Gutiérrez É, Edwards AMJ, McHale G, Newton MI, Wells GG, Brown CV, Ledesma-Aguilar R
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Langmuir
Year: 2021
Volume: 37
Issue: 24
Pages: 7328-7340
Print publication date: 22/06/2021
Online publication date: 08/06/2021
Acceptance date: 08/06/2021
Date deposited: 06/12/2021
ISSN (print): 0743-7463
ISSN (electronic): 1520-5827
Publisher: American Chemical Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c00606
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c00606
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