2016/06/02 by Aashish Priye, Priye, Aashish, Victor M. Ugaz +2
Chemistry · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions #Field-Flow Fractionation Techniques #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1606.00655
arxiv created 2016/06/02 · arxiv updated 2016/06/03
The unique ability of chaotic advection under micro-scale confinement to direct chemical processes along accelerated kinetic pathways has long been recognized. But practical applications have been slow to emerge because optimal results are often counter-intuitively achieved in flows that appear to possess undesirably high disorder. Here we demonstrate how thermally actuated chaotic phenomena within these microenvironments are capable of establishing a continuous conveyor transporting chemical compounds from the bulk to targeted locations on solid boundaries where they become greatly enriched. These findings intriguingly suggest that microscale chaotic advection may offer a new- mechanism to explain emergence of biomolecular complexity from dilute organic precursors in the prebiotic milieu-a key unanswered question in the origin of life. We further show how these flows can be rationally designed and harnessed to execute bulk biochemical processes with a level of robustness previously thought unattainable.