Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 7, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11092
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Funding
- NSF [IBN-0131293]
- College of William and Mary (W&M) research leave
- W&M Undergraduate Science Education and Research Program
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant through the Undergraduate Science Education Program
- W&M Honors Fellowship through the Roy R. Charles Center for Academic Excellence
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Suspension-feeding fishes such as goldfish and whale sharks retain prey without clogging their oral filters, whereas clogging is a major expense in industrial crossflow filtration of beer, dairy foods and biotechnology products. Fishes' abilities to retain particles that are smaller than the pore size of the gill-raker filter, including extraction of particles despite large holes in the filter, also remain unexplained. Here we show that unexplored combinations of engineering structures (backward-facing steps forming d-type ribs on the porous surface of a cone) cause fluid dynamic phenomena distinct from current biological and industrial filter operations. This vortical cross-step filtration model prevents clogging and explains the transport of tiny concentrated particles to the oesophagus using a hydrodynamic tongue. Mass transfer caused by vortices along d-type ribs in crossflow is applicable to filter-feeding duck beak lamellae and whale baleen plates, as well as the fluid mechanics of ventilation at fish gill filaments.
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