Dissipative particle dynamics study of phase separation in binary fluid mixtures in periodic and confined domains

Phase separation in binary fluid mixtures with symmetric and asymmetric Schmidt numbers: A DPD study

We investigate the effect of the Schmidt number (Sc) on phase separation dynamics of two immiscible fluids in a two-dimensional periodic box using dissipative particle dynamics. The range of Sc investigated spans liquid-liquid separation processes. Phase separation is characterized by a domain size r(t), which typically follows a power law t^β in time t, where β is a characteristic exponent corresponding to the coarsening mechanism at play. The phase separation dynamics is studied for strongly (deep quench) separating mixtures. We consider cases of critical (ϕ ∼ 0.5) and off-critical (ϕ < 0.5) mixtures of fluids A and B for both Sc_A = Sc_B and Sc_A ≠ Sc_B. In all cases, the growth dynamics slow down with the increasing Schmidt number of either fluid. We observe the power law exponent β = 0.5 for symmetric (Sc_A = Sc_B) critical mixtures and β = 0.33 for all other cases. However, for off-critical mixtures, the exponent is 0.33 irrespective of the Schmidt number ratio of the two fluids. We explain these results from an analysis of the competition between diffusive effects vis-á-vis dynamical forces.