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Chemically active filaments: analysis and extensions of slender phoretic theory

Katsamba, Panayiota; Butler, Matthew D.; Koens, Lyndon; Montenegro-Johnson, Thomas D.

Authors

Panayiota Katsamba

Matthew D. Butler

Thomas D. Montenegro-Johnson



Abstract

Autophoretic microswimmers self-propel via surface interactions with a surrounding solute fuel. Chemically-active filaments are an exciting new microswimmer design that augments traditional autophoretic microswimmers, such as spherical Janus particles, with extra functionality inherent to their slender filament geometry. Slender Phoretic Theory (SPT) was developed by Katsamba et al. to analyse the dynamics of chemically-active filaments with arbitrary three-dimensional shape and chemical patterning. SPT provides a line integral solution for the solute concentration field and slip velocity on the filament surface. In this work, we exploit the generality of SPT to calculate a number of new, non-trivial analytical solutions for slender autophoretic microswimmers, including a general series solution for phoretic filaments with arbitrary geometry and surface chemistry, a universal solution for filaments with a straight centreline, and explicit solutions for some canonical shapes useful for practical applications and benchmarking numerical code. Many common autophoretic particle designs include discrete jumps in surface chemistry; here we extend our SPT to handle such discontinuities, showing that they are regularised by a boundary layer around the jump. Since our underlying framework is linear, combinations of our results provide a library of analytic solutions that will allow researchers to probe the interplay of activity patterning and shape.

Citation

Katsamba, P., Butler, M. D., Koens, L., & Montenegro-Johnson, T. D. (2022). Chemically active filaments: analysis and extensions of slender phoretic theory. Soft matter, 18, 7051-7063. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2sm00942k

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 28, 2022
Online Publication Date Aug 23, 2022
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date Sep 2, 2022
Publicly Available Date Oct 1, 2022
Journal Soft Matter
Print ISSN 1744-683X
Electronic ISSN 1744-6848
Publisher Royal Society of Chemistry
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 18
Pages 7051-7063
DOI https://doi.org/10.1039/d2sm00942k
Keywords Condensed Matter Physics; General Chemistry
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4064344

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