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Self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle in a shear-thinning fluid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2024

Guangpu Zhu Open the ORCID record for Guangpu Zhu [Opens in a new window] ,
Brandon van Gogh ,
Lailai Zhu Open the ORCID record for Lailai Zhu [Opens in a new window] ,
On Shun Pak  and
Yi Man Open the ORCID record for Yi Man [Opens in a new window]
Guangpu Zhu
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117575, Republic of Singapore
Brandon van Gogh
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Lailai Zhu
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117575, Republic of Singapore
On Shun Pak*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA Department of Applied Mathematics, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA
Yi Man*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanics and Engineering Science at College of Engineering, and State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China
*
†Email addresses for correspondence: opak@scu.edu, yiman@pku.edu.cn
†Email addresses for correspondence: opak@scu.edu, yiman@pku.edu.cn
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Abstract

Shear-thinning viscosity is a non-Newtonian behaviour that active particles often encounter in biological fluids such as blood and mucus. The fundamental question of how this ubiquitous non-Newtonian rheology affects the propulsion of active particles has attracted substantial interest. In particular, spherical Janus particles driven by self-diffusiophoresis, a major physico-chemical propulsion mechanism of synthetic active particles, were shown to always swim slower in a shear-thinning fluid than in a Newtonian fluid. In this work, we move beyond the spherical limit to examine the effect of particle eccentricity on self-diffusiophoretic propulsion in a shear-thinning fluid. We use a combination of asymptotic analysis and numerical simulations to show that shear-thinning rheology can enhance self-diffusiophoretic propulsion of a spheroidal particle, in stark contrast to previous findings for the spherical case. A systematic characterization of the dependence of the propulsion speed on the particle's active surface coverage has also uncovered an intriguing feature associated with the propulsion speeds of a pair of complementarily coated particles not previously reported. Symmetry arguments are presented to elucidate how this new feature emerges as a combined effect of anisotropy of the spheroidal geometry and nonlinearity in fluid rheology.

JFM classification

Complex Fluids: Complex Fluids Low-Reynolds-number flows: Low-Reynolds-number flows
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 986 , 10 May 2024 , A39
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

‡

These authors contribute equally to this work.

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