SC49 


Suspensions and Colloids


Hydrodynamic coupling to the electrical response of fluid suspensions of non-Brownian conducting particles


October 12, 2022 (Wednesday) 4:05


Track 1 / Sheraton 4

(Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Lin, Han (Northwestern University, Chemical and Biological Engineering)
  2. Majji, Madhu V (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering)
  3. Cho, Noah (Northwestern University, Chemical and Biological Engineering)
  4. Zeeman, John R. (Northwestern University, Chemical and Biological Engineering)
  5. Swan, James W. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chemical Engineering)
  6. Richards, Jeffrey J. (Northwestern University, Chemical and biological engineering)

(in printed abstract book)
Han Lin1, Madhu V Majji2, Noah Cho1, John R. Zeeman1, James W. Swan2 and Jeffrey J. Richards1
1Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; 2Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139


Richards, Jeffrey J.


experimental methods; computational methods; rheometry techniques; suspensions


We report on the electrical response of suspensions of non-Brownian, conductive particles subjected to shear flow. We find a strong shear rate and volume fraction dependence to the electrical conductivity. We quantify this dependence be determining the electrical diffusivity using chronoamperometry and impedance spectroscopy. We demonstrate collapse of the electrical diffusivity with an empirical scaling law that quantitatively predicts that rate of charge transport. Finally, we perform Stokesian dynamics simulations coupled with a kinetic Monte Carlo scheme to interrogate the microscopic origin of the transport process and demonstrate not only quantitative agreement with experimental data but show that the electrical diffusivity exceeds the self-diffusivity of the particles. We conclude that electrical transport in non-Brownian suspensions is dominated by the shear driven dynamical interactions within these suspensions that facilitate electron delocalization over dynamic clusters that form along the flow compressional axis.