Ion size and image effect on electrokinetic flows.

Electrokinetic phenomena play a major role in microfluidic systems, and such a role becomes even more significant in nanofluidic systems due to the increase of the surface-to-volume ratio. Description of the electric double layer (EDL) at a solid-liquid interface is the key to understand and utilize electrokinetic phenomena. However, the traditional Gouy-Chapman (GC) theory for the EDL, which has been successfully used in many microfluidic applications, does not include some important characteristics such as ion size and image effect. These characteristics are indeed important in nanofluidics. This paper explores the impacts of ion size and the image effect on micro- and nanoscale electrokinetic flows. An advanced theory, the modified Poisson-Boltzmann (MPB) theory proposed by Outhwaite and his co-workers,1,26 is adopted to describe the EDL. Electrokinetic flows in micro- and nanochannels are reinvestigated. The results show that ion size has significant effects on electrokinetic flows in nanosystems in terms of both the flow field and the streaming potential, while the image effect only significantly affects the streaming potential.