title: Electrokinetic ion transport in confined micro-nanochannel.
abstract: In this paper, a confined micronanochannel is presented to concentrate ions in a restricted zone. A general model exploiting the Poisson-Nernst-Plank equations coupled with the Navier-Stokes equation is employed to simulate the electrokinetic ion transport. The influences of the micronanochannel dimension and the surface charge density on the potential distribution, the ion concentration, and the fluid flow are investigated. The numerical results show that the potential drop depends mainly on the nanochannel, instead of the confined channel. Both decreasing the width and increasing the length enhance the ion enrichment performance. For a given nanochannel, ultimate value of ion concentration may be determined by the potential at the center point of the nanochannel. The study also shows that the enrichment stability can be improved by increasing the micronanochannel width, decreasing the micronanochannel length and reducing the surface charge density.
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical Engineering, Northeast Dianli University, Jilin, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Junyao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Technology and System of Liaoning Province, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Chong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Technology and System of Liaoning Province, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004586:Electrophoresis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D007477:Ions / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D007477:Ions
keywords: Enrichment; Ion transport; Nanofluidics; Numerical simulation