Zheng Mingchuan, Welche Patrick R L, Cardoso Silvana S S, Huppert Herbert E, Cartwright Julyan H E, Routh Alexander F
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0AS, UK.
Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0EZ, UK.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2025 Sep 11;383(2304):20240266. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2024.0266.
Chemical gardens refer to a class of self-assembling structures of semi-permeable precipitates. They have been attracting significant interest due to their relevance to sub-oceanic hydrothermal vents and the origin of life. We have investigated the growth behaviour of chemical garden walls in a horizontal Hele-Shaw cell. The experiments were conducted with pellets of either solid cobalt(II) or manganese(II) chloride contained in aqueous sodium silicate solutions. It is found that the growth of the chemical garden walls can be well described by a simple, diffusion-controlled dynamical model until their eventual osmotic fracture at a reproducible time. This provides a basis by which wall growth in more complex chemical garden systems can be characterized.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological fluid dynamics: emerging directions'.
化学花园是指一类半透性沉淀物的自组装结构。由于它们与海底热液喷口以及生命起源的相关性，一直备受关注。我们研究了化学花园壁在水平赫勒-肖槽中的生长行为。实验使用了包含在硅酸钠水溶液中的固体氯化钴（II）或氯化锰（II）小球进行。结果发现，化学花园壁的生长可以通过一个简单的、扩散控制的动力学模型很好地描述，直到它们在可重复的时间最终发生渗透破裂。这为表征更复杂化学花园系统中的壁生长提供了基础。本文是主题为“生物流体动力学：新兴方向”的一部分。
