Molecular Theory for Electrokinetic Transport in pH-Regulated Nanochannels.
Ion transport through nanochannels depends on various external driving forces as well as the structural and hydrodynamic inhomogeneity of the confined fluid inside of the pore. Conventional models of electrokinetic transport neglect the discrete nature of ionic species and electrostatic correlations important at the boundary and often lead to inconsistent predictions of the surface potential and the surface charge density. Here, we demonstrate that the electrokinetic phenomena can be successfully described by the classical density functional theory in conjunction with the Navier-Stokes equation for the fluid flow. The new theoretical procedure predicts ion conductivity in various pH-regulated nanochannels under different driving forces, in excellent agreement with experimental data.
†Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and Department of Mathematics, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, United States.|‡Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Xian
X
Kong
†Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and Department of Mathematics, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, United States.
Jian
J
Jiang
‡Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Diannan
D
Lu
‡Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Zheng
Z
Liu
†Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and Department of Mathematics, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, United States.
Jianzhong
J
Wu
Poisson−Boltzmann equation; density functional theory; electric double layer; electro-osmotic flow; ion transport; nanofluidics