The effect of uni/bipolar charge injection on EHD conduction pumping

•Impact of charge injection on performance of EHD conduction pump investigated.•For positive ion injection, EHD flow was suppressed and ultimately reversed.•Linear variation of flow with applied voltage collapses in presence of injection.•Less pronounced effect of bipolar injection compared to unipolar injection.

Electrohydrodynamics (EHD) conduction pumping takes advantage of Coulomb force generated by externally applied electric field and dissociated charges from electrolytes present in the working fluid. With the electric field maintained below the DC breakdown limit (i.e voltage required for charge injection), EHD conduction generated flow relies primarily upon the asymmetry of the electrodes where the flow is always generated toward the specific direction regardless of the electrodes polarity. The charge distribution induced by the process of dissociation may be altered by charge injection, potentially present at the electrodes' surfaces. The charge injection could occur, for example, because of the electrode surface roughness.This paper is a numerical investigation to quantify the impact of the charge injection on the performance of EHD conduction pump. The numerical domain comprises a coplanar asymmetric electrode pair embedded against a 2-D channel wall where the EHD conduction induced liquid flow is expected to be generated from the narrower electrode toward the wider electrode in the absence of charge injection. The electric field, net charge density, and electric body force distributions are presented in the absence and presence of charge injection. In addition, the electrically generated net flow is calculated for several operating conditions.