Active control of viscous fingering using electric fields

Visualization of Multiphase Reactive Flow and Mass Transfer in Functionalized Microfluidic Porous Media

Multiphase reactive flow in porous media is an important research topic in many natural and industrial processes. In the present work, photolithography is adopted to fabricate multicomponent mineral porous media in a microchannel, microfluidics experiments are conducted to capture the multiphase reactive flow, methyl violet 2B is employed to visualize the real-time concentration field of the acid solution and a sophisticated image processing method is developed to obtain the quantitative results of the distribution of different phases. With the advanced methods, experiments are conducted with different acid concentration and inlet velocity in different porous structures with different phenomena captured. Under a low acid concentration, the reaction will be single phase. In the gaseous cases with higher acid concentration, preferential flow paths with faster flow and reaction are formed by the multiphase hydrodynamic instabilities. In the experiments with different inlet velocities, it is observed that a higher inlet velocity will lead to a faster reaction but less gas bubbles generated. In contrast, more gas bubbles would be generated and block the flow and reaction under a lower inlet velocity. Finally, in heterogeneous structures, fractures or cavities would significantly redirect the flow and promote the formation of preferential flow path nearby.

Fingering stabilization and adhesion force in the lifting flow with a fluid annulus

The lifting Hele-Shaw cell flow commonly involves the stretching of a viscous oil droplet surrounded by air, in the confined space between two parallel plates. As the upper plate is lifted, viscous fingering instabilities emerge at the air-oil interface. Such an interfacial instability phenomenon is widely observed in numerous technological and industrial applications, being quite difficult to control. Motivated by the recent interest in controlling and stabilizing the Saffman-Taylor instability in lifting Hele-Shaw flows, we propose an alternative way to restrain the development of interfacial disturbances in this gap-variable system. Our method modifies the traditional plate-lifting flow arrangement by introducing a finite fluid annulus layer encircling the central oil droplet, and separating it from the air. A second-order, perturbative mode-coupling approach is employed to analyze morphological and stability behaviors in this three-fluid, two-interface, doubly connected system. Our findings indicate that the intermediate fluid ring can significantly stabilize the interface of the central oil droplet. We show that the effectiveness of this stabilization protocol relies on the appropriate choice of the ring's viscosity and thickness. Furthermore, we calculate the adhesion force required to detach the plates, and find that it does not change significantly with the addition of the fluid envelope as long as it is sufficiently thin. Finally, we detect no distinction in the adhesion force computed for stable or unstable annular interfaces, indicating that the presence of fingering at the ring's boundaries has a negligible effect on the adhesion force.

Electroconvective viscous fingering in a single polyelectrolyte fluid on a charge selective surface

When a low-viscosity fluid displaces into a higher-viscosity fluid, the liquid-liquid interface becomes unstable causing finger-like patterns. This viscous fingering instability has been widely observed in nature and engineering systems with two adjoined fluids. Here, we demonstrate a hitherto-unrealizable viscous fingering in a single fluid-solid interface. In a single polyelectrolyte fluid on a charge selective surface, selective ion rejection through the surface initiates i) stepwise ion concentration and viscosity gradient boundaries in the fluid and ii) electroconvective vortices on the surface. As the vortices grow, the viscosity gradient boundary pushes away from the surface, resulting viscous fingering. Comparable to conventional one with two fluids, i) a viscosity ratio ([Formula: see text]) governs the onset of this electroconvective viscous fingering, and ii) the boundary properties (finger velocity and rheological effects) - represented by [Formula: see text], electric Rayleigh ([Formula: see text]), Schmidt ([Formula: see text]), and Deborah ([Formula: see text]) numbers - determine finger shapes (straight v.s. ramified, the onset length of fingering, and relative finger width). With controllable onset and shape, the mechanism of electroconvective viscous fingering offers new possibilities for manipulating ion transport and dendritic instability in electrochemical systems.

Interface Stabilization in Adhesion Caused by Elastohydrodynamic Deformation

Interfacial instabilities are common phenomena observed during adhesion measurements involving viscoelastic polymers or fluids. Typical probe-tack adhesion measurements with soft adhesives are conducted with rigid probes. However, in many settings, such as for medical applications, adhesives make and break contact from soft surfaces such as skin. Here we study how detachment from soft probes alters the debonding mechanism of a model viscoelastic polymer film. We demonstrate that detachment from a soft probe suppresses Saffman-Taylor instabilities commonly encountered in adhesion. We suggest the mechanism for interface stabilization is elastohydrodynamic deformation of the probe and propose a scaling for the onset of stabilization.

Control of interfacial instabilities through variable injection rate in a radial Hele-Shaw cell: A nonlinear approach for late-time analysis

In this paper, the nonlinear behavior of immiscible viscous fingering in a circular Hele-Shaw cell under the action of different time-dependent injection flow rate schemes is assessed numerically. Unlike previous studies which addressed the infinite viscosity ratio (inviscid-viscous flow), the problem is tackled by paying special attention to flows with finite viscosity ratio (viscous flow) in which the viscosity of the displacing and the displaced fluids can have any arbitrary value. Systematic numerical simulations based on a complex-variable formulation of Cauchy-Green barycentric coordinates are performed at different mobility ratios and capillary numbers with a focus on the late-time fully nonlinear regime. Additionally, numerical optimization is used to obtain the optimal flow rate schedule through a second-order weakly nonlinear stability analysis in contrast to previous studies in which the optimal flow rate was obtained entirely based on linear stability analysis. It is demonstrated that, irrespective of the values of the mobility ratio and/or the capillary number, for patterns whose constant injection counterpart exhibits linear flow regime, the curvature-driven relaxation time is comparable with the operational time of the time-dependent injection flow rate controlling schemes, and most of the controlling schemes work very well and suppress the fingering phenomenon remarkably with the maximum recovery improvement of 15%. As the nonlinearity of the system increases, the schemes may still perform well, but their effectiveness is more pronounced in patterns with less nonlinearity in their constant injection counterpart than those with higher nonlinearity. As the nonlinearity increases, the curvature-driven relaxation time becomes longer than the operational time of the schemes, leading to a reduction in their effectiveness. Additionally, it is shown that employment of the second-order weakly nonlinear stability analysis to formulate the objective function does not result in any remarkable variation in the obtained optimal flow rate schedule.

Wetting transition and fluid trapping in a microfluidic fracture

Immiscible fluid-fluid displacement in confined geometries is a fundamental process occurring in many natural phenomena and technological applications, from geological CO2 sequestration to microfluidics. Due to the interactions between the fluids and the solid walls, fluid invasion undergoes a wetting transition from complete displacement at low displacement rates to leaving a film of the defending fluid on the confining surfaces at high displacement rates. While most real surfaces are rough, fundamental questions remain about the type of fluid-fluid displacement that can emerge in a confined, rough geometry. Here, we study immiscible displacement in a microfluidic device with a precisely controlled structured surface as an analogue for a rough fracture. We analyze the influence of the degree of surface roughness on the wetting transition and the formation of thin films of the defending liquid. We show experimentally, and rationalize theoretically, that roughness affects both the stability and dewetting dynamics of thin films, leading to distinct late-time morphologies of the undisplaced (trapped) fluid. Finally, we discuss the implications of our observations for geologic and technological applications.

Impact of interfacial rheology on finger tip splitting

Fluid-fluid interfaces, laden with polymers, surfactants, lipid bilayers, proteins, solid particles, or other surface-active agents, often exhibit a rheologically complex response to deformations. Despite its academic and practical relevance to fluid dynamics and various other fields of research, the role of interfacial rheology in viscous fingering remains fairly underexplored. A noteworthy exception is the work by Li and Manikantan [Phys. Rev. Fluids 6, 074001 (2021)2469-990X10.1103/PhysRevFluids.6.074001], who used linear stability analysis to show that surface rheological stresses act to stabilize the development of radial viscous fingering at the linear regime. In this paper, we perform a perturbative, second-order mode-coupling analysis of the system and investigate the influence of interfacial rheology on the morphology of the fingering structures at early nonlinear stages of the dynamics. In particular, we focus on understanding how interfacial rheology impacts the emblematic finger tip-widening and finger tip-splitting phenomena that take place in radial viscous fingering in Hele-Shaw cells. We describe the viscous Newtonian fluid-fluid interface by using a Boussinesq-Scriven model, and derive a generalized Young-Laplace pressure jump condition at the fluid-fluid interface. In this framing, we go beyond the purely linear description and use Darcy's law to obtain a perturbative mode-coupling differential equation which describes the time evolution of the perturbation amplitudes, accurate to second order. Our early nonlinear mode-coupling results indicate that regardless of their stabilizing action at the linear regime, interfacial rheology effects favor finger tip widening, leading to the occurrence of enhanced finger tip-splitting events.

Controlling fluid adhesion force with electric fields

Developing adhesives whose bond strength can be externally manipulated is a topic of considerable interest for practical and scientific purposes. In this work, we propose a method of controlling the adhesion force of a regular fluid, such as water and/or glycerol, confined between two parallel plates by applying an external electric field. Our results show the possibility of enhancing or diminishing the bond strength of the liquid sample by appropriately tuning the intensity and direction of the electric current generated by the applied electric field. Furthermore, we verify that, for a given direction of the electric current, the adhesion force can be reduced enough for the fluid to lose its adhesive properties and begin exerting a force to move apart the confining plates. In these circumstances, we obtain an analytical expression for the minimum electric current required to detach the plates without requiring the action of an external force.

Engineering a Vascularized Hypoxic Tumor Model for Therapeutic Assessment

Solid tumors in advanced cancer often feature a structurally and functionally abnormal vasculature through tumor angiogenesis, which contributes to cancer progression, metastasis, and therapeutic resistances. Hypoxia is considered a major driver of angiogenesis in tumor microenvironments. However, there remains a lack of in vitro models that recapitulate both the vasculature and hypoxia in the same model with physiological resemblance to the tumor microenvironment, while allowing for high-content spatiotemporal analyses for mechanistic studies and therapeutic evaluations. We have previously constructed a hypoxia microdevice that utilizes the metabolism of cancer cells to generate an oxygen gradient in the cancer cell layer as seen in solid tumor sections. Here, we have engineered a new composite microdevice-microfluidics platform that recapitulates a vascularized hypoxic tumor. Endothelial cells were seeded in a collagen channel formed by viscous fingering, to generate a rounded vascular lumen surrounding a hypoxic tumor section composed of cancer cells embedded in a 3-D hydrogel extracellular matrix. We demonstrated that the new device can be used with microscopy-based high-content analyses to track the vascular phenotypes, morphology, and sprouting into the hypoxic tumor section over a 7-day culture, as well as the response to different cancer/stromal cells. We further evaluated the integrity/leakiness of the vascular lumen in molecular delivery, and the potential of the platform to study the movement/trafficking of therapeutic immune cells. Therefore, our new platform can be used as a model for understanding tumor angiogenesis and therapeutic delivery/efficacy in vascularized hypoxic tumors.

Stabilization of liquid instabilities with ionized gas jets

Impinging gas jets can induce depressions in liquid surfaces, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has observed the cavity produced by blowing air through a straw directly above a cup of juice. A dimple-like stable cavity on a liquid surface forms owing to the balance of forces among the gas jet impingement, gravity and surface tension^1,2. With increasing gas jet speed, the cavity becomes unstable and shows oscillatory motion, bubbling (Rayleigh instability) and splashing (Kelvin-Helmholtz instability)^3,4. However, despite its scientific and practical importance-particularly in regard to reducing cavity instability growth in certain gas-blown systems-little attention has been given to the hydrodynamic stability of a cavity in such gas-liquid systems so far. Here we demonstrate the stabilization of such instabilities by weakly ionized gas for the case of a gas jet impinging on water, based on shadowgraph experiments and computational two-phase fluid and plasma modelling. We focus on the interfacial dynamics relevant to electrohydrodynamic (EHD) gas flow, so-called electric wind, which is induced by the momentum transfer from accelerated charged particles to neutral gas under an electric field. A weakly ionized gas jet consisting of periodic pulsed ionization waves⁵, called plasma bullets, exerts more force via electrohydrodynamic flow on the water surface than a neutral gas jet alone, resulting in cavity expansion without destabilization. Furthermore, both the bidirectional electrohydrodynamic gas flow and electric field parallel to the gas-water interface produced by plasma interacting 'in the cavity' render the surface more stable. This case study demonstrates the dynamics of liquids subjected to a plasma-induced force, offering insights into physical processes and revealing an interdependence between weakly ionized gases and deformable dielectric matter, including plasma-liquid systems.