Magnetohydrodynamics and Soret Effects on Bioconvection in a Porous Medium Saturated With a Nanofluid Containing Gyrotactic Microorganisms

Abstract

We investigate the bioconvection of gyrotactic microorganism near the boundary layer region of an inclined semi infinite permeable plate embedded in a porous medium filled with a water-based nanofluid containing motile microorganisms. The model for the nanofluid incorporates Brownian motion, thermophoresis, also Soret effect and magnetic field effect are considered in the study. The governing partial differential equations for momentum, heat, solute concentration, nanoparticle volume fraction, and microorganism conservation are reduced to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations and solved numerically. The effects of the bioconvection parameters on the thermal, solutal, nanoparticle concentration, and the density of the micro-organisms are analyzed. A comparative analysis of our results with previously reported results in the literature is given. Some interesting phenomena are observed for the local Nusselt and Sherwood number. It is shown that the Péclet number and the bioconvection Rayleigh number highly influence the local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers. For Péclet numbers less than 1, the local Nusselt and Sherwood number increase with the bioconvection Lewis number. However, both the heat and mass transfer rates decrease with bioconvection Lewis number for higher values of the Péclet number.