Contact line dynamics of electroosmotic flows of incompressible binary fluid system with density and viscosity contrasts

Abstract

We consider electrically driven dynamics of an incompressible binary fluid, with contrasting densities and viscosities of the two phases, flowing through narrow fluidic channel with walls with predefined surface wettabilities. Through phase field formalism, we describe the interfacial kinetics in the presence of electro-hydrodynamic coupling and address the contact line dynamics of the two-fluid system. We unveil the interplay of the substrate wettability and the contrast in the fluid properties culminating in the forms of two distinct regimes—interface breakup regime and a stable interface regime. Through a parametric study, we demarcate the effect of the density and viscosity contrasts along with the electrokinetic parameters such as the surface charge and ionic concentration on the underlying contact-line-dynamics over interfacial scales.