Suppressing Interfacial Instability of Immiscible Liquid-in-Liquid Flow Using Magnetic Forces

Interfacial instability prevents a liquid jet from flowing indefinitely within air or another liquid. An approach is presented here to suppress interfacial instability by means of a magnetic force applied by a ferrofluid envelope around the jet. The stability limits occurring within a large parameter window are experimentally investigated with length and time scales governed by the magnetic Bond number. Instabilities can be generated by modifying the magnetic force strength externally, with a remarkable return to stability when removing the external stimulus. The current system with soft and slippery interfaces enables investigations of flow systems beyond the limits of standard hydrodynamics allowing for exciting applications in flow chemistry, interface engineering and transport of biological materials.