Pumping electrolytes with arrays of electrodes subjected to travelling-wave potentials: Electrode design

The pumping of electrolytes by arrays of microelectrodes in microchannels is currently under research. In this work we compute the net fluid velocity generated by microelectrode arrays subjected to travelling wave potentials in the low voltage approximation. It is shown that the net fluid velocity can increase up to 2.7 times when the electrodes are raised above the channel bottom. Friction on the inter-electrode gaps is playing a very important role in planar structures.