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Electrokinetic microchannel battery by means of electrokinetic and microfluidic phenomena

Jun Yang, Fuzhi Lu, Larry W Kostiuk and Daniel Y Kwok

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Pressure-driven flow in a microchannel induces a streaming current due to the presence of an electrical double layer in the interface between the electrolyte solution and channel wall. As the streaming current is of the order of a nano-amphere and is additive, we propose here a method to develop an electrokinetic battery consisting of an array of microchannels that converts the hydrostatic pressure of a liquid into electrical work. We have given oscillating analytical solutions by means of an electrical circuit analysis to model the multi-microchannel battery. Using superposition of the appropriate Fourier series, the derived analytical solutions are useful to predict the current when there is more general time-dependent flow through a microchannel array. To illustrate the idea, we have studied steady-state pressure-driven flow in micropore porous glass filter and compared the results with those predicted from our model. From a 30 cm hydrostatic pressure drop, an external current of 1–2 µA was obtained by means of water passing through the micropore porous glass filter. A larger current can be obtained by simply using a solution with higher salt concentration. This results in a new and potentially useful method of energy conversion by means of an array of microchannels.


PACS

47.85.Np Fluidics

85.85.+j Micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) and devices

47.56.+r Flows through porous media

47.60.-i Flow phenomena in quasi-one-dimensional systems

42.79.Ci Filters, zone plates, and polarizers

Subjects

Fluid dynamics

Electronics and devices

Optics, quantum optics and lasers

Nanoscale science and low-D systems

Dates

Issue 6 (November 2003)

Received 23 April 2003, in final form 25 June 2003

Published 20 October 2003



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