Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol.85, No.5, 609-616, 2007
Kinetics of colloidal particle deposition to a solid surface from pressure driven microchannel flows
Kinetics of colloidal particles deposition onto a solid surface in hydrodynamic flows was studied. A phenomenological mathematical model was presented to analyze the particle deposition from pressure-driven flows in a parallel-plate microchannel. The two-dimensional mass transport equation incorporating hydrodynamic convection, particle diffusion, gravity force and DLVO colloidal forces (i.e., the van der Waals and electrical double-layer forces) was solved numerically using a finite difference method to obtain the dimensionless particle deposition rates expressed by the Sherwood number. The numerical predictions of the Sherwood number were compared with the results of videornicroscopic experiments conducted under various physicochemical conditions including electrolyte concentration, particle size and hydrodynamic flow intensity in terms of the Reynolds number, and reasonable good agreement was found.