Evaluation of electroosmotic pumping effect in microporous media flow

Abstract

In this paper, the electroosmotic flow (EO) in desiccant powders of micro porous is investigated regarding to the flow rate caused by the electroosmosis and the gravity. In particular, the coupling effect of electroosmosis and dehumidification in the flow is studied. It is noticeable that the actual electroosmosis pumping force maintains at a certain rate (10μL/min for the designed system). It is interpreted that the actual voltage from bench power is kept constant which exerts same effect of electric field on the desiccant particles. And during this stage the resistance inside the channel deceases with the rate of water entering into the electroosmosis pumping section which is affected by the capacity of dehumidification of the desiccant particles. Moreover, the mass flow rate by the effect of electroosmosis pumping can be achieved at 0.746 gm-2m-1 under 5V DC supply. These experimental results in this study provide useful instructions of electroosmosis performance for designing the micro porous channel in such as filtering the compounds of drug delivery, particle purification and liquid separation applications etc.