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Crowding accelerates the rotation of a bacterial rotor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2024

Haoxin Huang Open the ORCID record for Haoxin Huang [Opens in a new window] ,
Bokai Zhang Open the ORCID record for Bokai Zhang [Opens in a new window]  and
Shuo Guo Open the ORCID record for Shuo Guo [Opens in a new window]
Haoxin Huang
Affiliation:
School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, PR China
Bokai Zhang
Affiliation:
School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China
Shuo Guo*
Affiliation:
School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, PR China
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

Understanding the propulsion of a swimmer in a large group of individuals holds the key to unravelling the intriguing dynamics of active matter collective motion. Here, we develop a two-dimensional (2-D) self-assembled rotor, powered by bacterial flagella. At a water–air interface, the average direction of rotation of a rotor is fixed. When the chiral rotor is put into a 2-D bacterial suspension, we examine the average and fluctuation of the angular velocity of the rotor. Remarkably, the average angular velocity of a rotor is found to increase up to 3 times when the density of surrounding bacterial suspension increases and the increase is nonlinear. In a dense suspension of bacteria, the existence of a rotor disrupts vortices in the surrounding active turbulence, and the acceleration of the rotor is independent of the activity level of the surrounding free bacteria. The nonlinear acceleration thus results from hydrodynamic interaction with surrounding crowdedness that can be quantitatively explained by hydrodynamic simulation. The simultaneity between the acceleration of rotor and free bacteria in active turbulence suggests that crowding-induced acceleration may promote the onset of instability. The result will inspire new active-matter-based microfluidic devices with improved transport properties.

JFM classification

Biological Fluid Dynamics: Swimming/flying Complex Fluids: Active matter
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 994 , 10 September 2024 , A12
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Supplementary material: File

Huang et al. supplementary movie 1

A rotor with radius R=17 μm surrounded by free bacteria (FB) at area fraction ϕ=0.03 and activity aF=20 μm/s.
Download Huang et al. supplementary movie 1(File)
File 21 MB
Supplementary material: File

Huang et al. supplementary movie 2

A rotor with radius R=15 μm surrounded by FB at ϕ=0.4 and aF=20 μm/s.
Download Huang et al. supplementary movie 2(File)
File 40.9 MB
Supplementary material: File

Huang et al. supplementary movie 3

A rotor with radius R=15 μm surrounded by FB at ϕ=0.32 and aF=10 μm/s.
Download Huang et al. supplementary movie 3(File)
File 20 MB
Supplementary material: File

Huang et al. supplementary material 4

Huang et al. supplementary material
Download Huang et al. supplementary material 4(File)
File 4 MB