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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Adapting Taylor Dispersion to Measure the Dispersion Coefficient of Electrolyte Solutions via an Accessible Microfluidic Setup
Published on: October 7, 2025
Taylor-Aris dispersion in temperature gradient focusing
David E Huber1, Juan G Santiago
1Microfluidics Department, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA 94551-0969, USA. dhuber@sandia.gov
Abstract:
Microfluidic temperature gradient focusing (TGF) uses an axial temperature gradient to induce a gradient in electrophoretic flux within a microchannel. When balanced with an opposing fluid flow, charged analytes simultaneously focus and separate according to their electrophoretic mobilities. We present a theoretical and experimental study of dispersion in TGF. We model the system using generalized dispersion analysis that yields a 1-D convection-diffusion equation that contains dispersion terms particular to TGF. We consider analytical solutions for the model under uniform temperature gradient conditions. Using a custom TGF experimental setup, we compare focusing measurements with the theoretical predictions. We find that the theory well represents the focusing behavior for flows within the Taylor-Aris dispersion regime.
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