Onsager's reciprocal relations for electroacoustic and sedimentation: Application to (concentrated) colloidal suspensions

J Chem Phys. 2015 May 21;142(19):194706. doi: 10.1063/1.4921375.

Abstract

In this article, the relations for electroacoustic phenomena, such as sedimentation potential, sedimentation intensity, colloid vibration potential, colloid vibration intensity/current, or electric sonic amplitude, are given, on the basis of irreversible thermodynamics. This formalism allows in particular to discuss the different expressions for concentrated suspensions found by various authors, which are of great practical interest. It was found that some existing expressions have to be corrected. Relations between the electrophoretic mobilities assessed by the different experiments are derived.