The Concept of Electroosmotically Driven Flow and Its Application to Biomimetics

• Published in: Journal of bionics engineering Vol. 1; no. 1; pp. 46 - 52
• Main Authors: Yan, Y. Y., Hull, J. B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Construction, Computing and Technology, The Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK 01-03-2004
• Subjects: anti-adhesion; electroosmosis; biomimetics; modelling; flow
• ISSN: 1672-6529; 2543-2141
• DOI: 10.1007/BF03399453

The concept of electroosmotically driven flow is built around understanding how the ionized particles or fluid are driven to flow by electroosmosis forces. Apart from the major applications of this concept to micro flow control elements which have been explored in parallel with the rapid developments in micro fabrication technologies, the present focus is on its application to biomimetics. As soil animals (in fact all living creatures) such as earthworms and dung beetles carry bioelectricity, the relative movement between the creatures and the surrounding soil which is a multi-component medium with moist content will generate electrophoresis or electroosmosis forces. Such forces drive the ionized moist content, normally water, to migrate from positive to negative poles under the action of electric double layer (EDL) effect, and effectively reduce the adhesion or drag. Predicting the electroosmotically driven flow in the vicinity of biological and animal surfaces is a key problem of drag/adhesion reduction and biomimetics design. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the theory of electroosmotically driven flow has developed and to describe its broader significance for anti adhesion of soil animals and biomimetics design of soil machinery tools.