Electroosmosis modulated transient blood flow in curved microvessels: Study of a mathematical model

The flow through curved microvessels has more realistic applications in physiological transport phenomena especially in blood flow through capillary and microvessels. Motivated by the biomicrofluidics applications, a mathematical model is developed to describe the blood flow inside a curved microvessel driven by electroosmosis. In addition to this flow, the channel experiences electric double layer phenomenon due to zeta potential about -25 mV. Lubrication theory and Debye-Hückel approximation are employed to obtain an analytical solution for electric potential function. Computations of stream function, axial velocity, volume flow rate, and pressure rise are computed through low zeta potentials. The electroosmotic flow behaviour is governed by two dimensionless parameters: Helmholtz-Smoluchowski velocity and Debye-Hückel parameter. It is also examined that, how curvature affects the blood flow driven by the electroosmosis. Furthermore, the salient features of flow characteristics and trapping phenomena are presented. The results indicate that pressure gradient and wall shear stress reduce with increasing the curvature effects however the trapping is more with high curvature of the microvessel. The observations also indicate promising features of micromixer, micro-peristaltic pumps, and organ-on-a-chip devices. They may further be exploited in diagnosis/mixing of samples, and haemodialysis respectively.