Discovery of New Electrohydrodynamic Flow
Discovery of New Electrohydrodynamic Flow
  • Reporter Kim Eun-ji
  • 승인 2010.03.24 10:24
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Potentially applied to microfluidic devices

A research team at POSTECH discovered a novel type of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow which can be used in micropumps to transfer dielectric liquid under electric fields. This was reported in the issue of Mar. 10 on Physical Review Letters, an internationally recognized journal in the field of physics.

Jae Chun Ryu (Ph.D), Kwan Hyoung Kang (assistant professor) and his research team at the Department of Mechanical Engineering found a new EHD flow which occurs near the objects immersed in dielectric liquids containing polar additives when applied with strong electric field. After their discovery they investigated into the cause of EHD flow by solving an analytical solution and comparing it with experimental results.

They suggested that the flow’s generation is associated with the nonuniform-field EHD (NUF EHD) flow. The research results are expected to be applied extensively in electromotive pumps and micromixers in microfluidic devices, for example. Beside its technological value, it is noted to be valuable academically because it can lead to an understanding and control of the dynamics of colloidal particles in dielectric liquids.

Professor Kang said, “One of the problems of decrease in e-paper response time is the instability of electric ink particles under electric field. The cause can be found through the EHD flow.”