Trends in computational simulations of electrochemical processes under hydrodynamic flow in microchannels

Computational modeling and theoretical simulations have recently become important tools for the development, characterization, and validation of microfluidic devices. The recent proliferation of commercial user-friendly software has allowed researchers in the microfluidics community, who might not be familiar with computer programming or fluid mechanics, to acquire important information on microsystems used for sensors, velocimetry, detection for microchannel separations, and microfluidic fuel cells. We discuss the most popular computational technique for modeling these systems--the finite element method--and how it can be applied to model electrochemical processes coupled with hydrodynamic flow in microchannels. Furthermore, some of the limitations and challenges of these computational models are also discussed.