Thermodynamic Efficiency of Porous Glass Electroosmotic Pumps

This paper presents an analytical and experimental study of electroosmotic (EO) pumps designed to be integrated with two-phase microchannel heat exchangers with load capacities of order 100 W and greater. We have fabricated sintered glass EO pumps that provide maximum flow rates and pressure capacities 33 ml/min and 1.3 atm, respectively, at 100 V applied potentials. We have developed an analytical model to solve for electroosmotic flow rate, total pump current, and thermodynamic efficiency as a function of pump pressure load for these porous-structure EO pumps. The model uses a symmetric electrolyte approximation valid for the high zeta potential regime and numerically solves the Poisson-Boltzmann equation for charge distribution in the idealized pore geometry. The model also incorporates an approximate ionic-strength-dependent zeta potential formulation. The effects of pressure and flow rate on thermodynamic efficiency are also analyzed theoretically and compared to our measurements.