Effects of static magnetic fields on diffusion in solutions

✍ Scribed by Y. Kinouchi; S. Tanimoto; T. Ushita; K. Sato; H. Yamaguchi; H. Miyamoto

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 397 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0197-8462
• DOI: 10.1002/bem.2250090207

✦ Synopsis

Static magnetic fields affect the diffusion of biological particles in solutions through the Lorentz force and Maxwell stress. These effects were analyzed theoretically to estimate the threshold field strength for these effects. Our results show that the Lorentz force suppresses the diffusion of charged particles such as Nat, K+, Ca", C1-, and plasma proteins. However, the threshold is so high, i.e., more than lo4 T, that the Lorentz force does not affect the ion diffusion at typical field strengths (a few Tesla at most). Since the threshold of gradient fields for producing a change in ion diffusion through the Maxwell stress is more than lo5 T2/m for paramagnetic molecules (FeCL,, 02) and plasma proteins, their diffusion would be unaffected by typical gradient fields (100 T2/m at most) and even by high gradient fields (less than lo5 T2/m) used in magnetic separation techniques. In contrast, movement of deoxygenated erythrocytes and FeC13 colloids (more than lo3 molecules) is influenced by the usual gradient fields due to a volume effect.