Dispersion with a pinch of salt

Ding (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 970, 2023, A27) analysed the dispersion of a multicomponent electrolyte solution flowing through a channel. An inequality in ionic diffusion coefficients induces a spontaneous electric field that leads to nonlinear coupling of species fluxes. Ding presented an effective equation for the long-time evolution of the ionic concentration distributions, which revealed novel features compared with the classic case of an uncharged solute. This work highlights the rich physics of ion diffusion and electro-migration in non-uniform flows.