Affiliations: [a] University of Tokyo, Nuclear Professional School,
Graduate School of Engineering, 2-22 Shirane Shirakata Tokai-mura Naka-gun,
Ibaraki 319-1188, Japan | [b] National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba,
Japan
Abstract: This article introduces a theory of studying transport phenomena of
charged or polarizable nano-particles in some biological media in
electromagnetic fields. The mathematical formulation of the transport phenomena
given in the article is based on systematic usage of non-equilibrium
thermodynamics and continuum electrodynamics for thermodynamic open systems.
Some complete sets of fundamental equations for the analyses of the transport
phenomena fulfilling basic physical laws are derived in the article. Possible
effects of viscosity, viscoelasticity, heat and mass flow, electric diffusion
current and polarization in either fluid or solid-like mixtures are
characterized properly in our theoretical model, including their coupling
effects. The theory may be used not only for analyzing transport phenomena of
some nano-drug carriers in drug delivery systems, but also for studying
molecular transport problems in some engineering applications. The formulated
theory is generally nonlinear, which may however be linearized in some cases.
Illustratively, a coupled electrodiffusion wave problem is analyzed with a
linearized model and its solution is discussed with some possible applications
outlined.
Keywords: Diffusion wave, drug delivery, electrodynamics, nano-particles, polarization
