Electrokinetic Lift of Small Particles

The breaking of the axial symmetry of the Maxwell stress distribution around a charged spherical particle leads to a transverse electroviscous lift force. In this paper we consider the electrokinetic lift arising from the asymmetry of the electric field, caused by the presence of a wall. It is assumed that the hydrodynamic flow field is undisturbed, which restricts the applicability of the theory for particle-wall interactions with a gap width comparable to or greater than the particle radius. It is found that the electrokinetic lift caused by the symmetry breaking of the electric field is similar to the lift caused by the symmetry breaking of the hydrodynamic flow field.