title: Coupling electrokinetics and rheology: Electrophoresis in non-Newtonian fluids.
abstract: We present a theoretical scheme to calculate the electrophoretic motion of charged colloidal particles immersed in complex (non-Newtonian) fluids possessing shear-rate-dependent viscosities. We demonstrate that this non-Newtonian rheology leads to an explicit shape and size dependence of the electrophoretic velocity of a uniformly charged particle in the thin-Debye-layer regime, in contrast to electrophoresis in Newtonian fluids. This dependence is caused by non-Newtonian stresses in the bulk (electroneutral) fluid outside the Debye layer, whose magnitude is naturally characterized in an electrophoretic Deborah number.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
authors.forename: Aditya S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Khair
authors.forename: Denise E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Posluszny
authors.forename: Lynn M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Walker