Homogenization results for ionic transport in periodic porous media

The effective behavior of the solution of a nonlinear system of coupled partial differential equations arising in the modeling of ionic transport phenomena in electrically charged periodic porous media is rigorously analyzed. Our model can be useful for biophysicists to describe the ionic transport through protein channels. Also, this setting proves to be relevant in the modeling of the flow of electrons and holes in semiconductor devices. The main tool for obtaining our macroscopic model is the use of the periodic unfolding method, which enables us to deal with a large class of heterogeneous media.