Polymer conformation during flow in porous media

Kawale, D.; Bouwman, G.; Sachdev, S.; Zitha, P.L.J.; Kreutzer, M.T.; Rossen, W.R.; Boukany, P.E. (2017)

Article / Letter to editor

Molecular conformations of individual polymers during flow through porous media are directly observed by single-DNA imaging in microfluidics. As the Weissenberg number increases during flow (Wi > 1), we observe two types of elastic instabilities: (a) stationary dead-zone and (b) time-dependant dead-zone washing. When stretched polymer chains enter a dead-zone, they first re-coil and, once inside the dead-zone, they rotate and re-stretch again. The probability distribution of DNA chains under the stretched condition inside the dead-zone is found to be heterogeneous with a broad distribution.

• All authors: Kawale, D.; Bouwman, G.; Sachdev, S.; Zitha, P.L.J.; Kreutzer, M.T.; Rossen, W.R.; Boukany, P.E.
• Date: 2017-12-14
• Journal: Soft Matter
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 46
• Pages: 8745 - 8755
• DOI: doi:10.1039/c7sm00817a