Phoretic Transport of Colloids through Solute-loaded Hydrogel Lattices

Hydrogels can be loaded and then gradually release solutes on demand, a feature that has proven useful in the context of drug delivery applications. Here, we report on how the interplay between flow and localized solute gradients formed around a hydrogel array influences the transport, clustering, and dispersion of colloidal particles. We finally discuss the potential implications of our observations for applications such as separation and filtration, colloid transport in dissolving porous media and targeted drug delivery to cancer cells.