Electroconvective instability near an ion-selective surface: A mesoscopic lattice Boltzmann study

Steric effect induces enhancement of electroconvective flow near electrochemical interfaces

Electroconvection, occurring near electrochemical interfaces, propels the movement of ions and water, leading to intricate phenomena rooted in the fine interplay between fluid, voltage, and ion. Here, neglecting ionic interactions, by incorporating the steric term into the Poisson-Nernst-Planck-Stokes coupling equation, direct numerical simulations of electroconvective vortex near nanoslot-bulk interfaces are conducted. For the steric effect, the steric number is introduced to discuss the factors and laws affecting the vortex. We illustrate the substantial enhancement of electroconvective vortex due to the steric effect of ions within the nanoslot. Upon increasing the steric number, the cation concentration in the nanoslot is enhanced, resulting in the expansion of the electric double layer (EDL). The EDLs on the walls inside the nanoslot come into contact with each other, causing the EDLs to overlap, consequently increasing the total charge within the EDLs inside the nanoslot. This EDL overlap enhances the charge density of the extended space charge layer, leading to the enhancement of the electroconvective vortex. Further, our scaling analysis, corroborated by direct numerical simulation and existing data, establishes the scaling of slip velocity, jointly regulated by the steric number and voltage difference. By modulating the membrane transport characteristics, the steric effect reduces flow structure size and flux fluctuations, which offers new perspectives for manipulating ion transport and flow instability.

Investigation on Spectral Characteristics of Gliding Arc Plasma Assisted Ammonia Lean Combustion

Ammonia as a non-carbon fuel is expected to play an important role in the future, but it is difficult to be effectively utilized at this stage due to its flame retardancy and other characteristics. Therefore, we propose to use gliding arc plasma combined with a swirl burner to enhance the combustion performance of ammonia. The electrical characteristics, electron density, gas rotational temperature and the distribution of key active species in the burner were studied via optical emission spectroscopy (OES). With the increase of equivalence ratio (EQR), the width of the Hα line decreases significantly, indicating that the electron density shows a downward trend, even as the gas rotational temperature shows an upward trend. When the equivalence ratio was 0.5, the gas rotational temperature increases by about 320 K compared with the pure air condition. During pure air discharge, there will still be obvious NO emission due to the plasma reaction, but with the addition of NH3, the NO content in the emission is significantly reduced. The light intensity of O atoms in the burner gradually decreases with the increase of the equivalence ratio, the light intensity of H atoms increases first and then decreases, and the light intensity of NH shows an upward trend. The reason may be that the plasma discharge effectively strengthens NH3(E)->NH2+H, NH2+H->NH+H2 and other reactions promote the initial reaction step of NH3 which thus effectively strengthens the NH3 combustion.