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Combining Microfluidics and Microrheology to Determine Rheological Properties of Soft Matter during Repeated Phase Transitions
Published on: April 19, 2018
Thermodynamic coarsening arrested by viscous fingering in partially miscible binary mixtures
Xiaojing Fu1, Luis Cueto-Felgueroso1,2, Ruben Juanes1
1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building 1, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We study the evolution of binary mixtures far from equilibrium, and show that the interplay between phase separation and hydrodynamic instability can arrest the Ostwald ripening process characteristic of nonflowing mixtures. We describe a model binary system in a Hele-Shaw cell using a phase-field approach with explicit dependence of both phase fraction and mass concentration. When the viscosity contrast between phases is large (as is the case for gas and liquid phases), an imposed background flow leads to viscous fingering, phase branching, and pinch off. This dynamic flow disorder limits phase growth and arrests thermodynamic coarsening. As a result, the system reaches a regime of statistical steady state in which the binary mixture is permanently driven away from equilibrium.
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