Unsteady Bioconvection Squeezing Flow in a Horizontal Channel with Chemical Reaction and Magnetic Field Effects

Abstract

The time-dependent mixed bioconvection flow of an electrically conducting fluid between two infinite parallel plates in the presence of a magnetic field and a first-order chemical reaction is investigated. The fully coupled nonlinear systems describing the total mass, momentum, thermal energy, mass diffusion, and microorganisms equations are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations via a set of new similarity transformations. The detailed analysis illustrating the influences of various physical parameters such as the magnetic, squeezing, and chemical reaction parameters and the Schmidt and Prandtl numbers on the distributions of temperature and microorganisms as well as the skin friction and the Nusselt number is presented. The conclusion is drawn that the flow field, temperature, and chemical reaction profiles are significantly influenced by magnetic parameter, heat generation/absorption parameter, and chemical parameter. Some examples of potential applications of such bioconvection could be found in pharmaceutical industry, microfluidic devices, microbial enhanced oil recovery, modeling oil, and gas-bearing sedimentary basins.