Pore-scale distribution and transport of active particles in a two-dimensional lattice

Suspensions of motile microswimmers such as bacteria and other active colloids frequently encounter porous environments where obstacles and complex shear flows strongly influence their dynamics.

Here, we study the distribution and transport of a dilute suspension of active particles in a square lattice of pillars, which serves as a model porous medium.

The microswimmers are modeled as slender point particles, and Brownian Dynamics simulations are performed to determine how their number density and polarization fields change with systematic variations in the medium porosity, polydispersity, flow strength, and self-propulsion strength.

We find that in the absence of flow, self-propulsion drives particle accumulation and radial polarization at the pillar surfaces.

In the presence of a background flow, particles preferentially accumulate in the wake of pillars and exhibit upstream polarization near their surface, consistent with experimental observations.

At moderate flow strengths, topological defects nucleate in the polarization field.

These defects are of purely kinematic origin and mark the transition from global upstream swimming at low flow strengths to the coexistence of upstream and downstream swimming regions in the lattice at high flow strengths.

The structured lattice studied here provides a controlled framework for isolating the physical mechanisms governing active transport in complex geometries, with direct relevance to transport in structured microfluidic settings.