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Fick's first law relates the diffusive flux to the gradient of the concentration. It postulates that the flux goes from regions of high concentration to regions of low concentration, with a magnitude that is proportional to the concentration gradient (spatial derivative), or in simplistic terms the concept that a solute will move from a region of high concentration to a region of low ...
is the gradient, i.e., rate of change with position, of the logarithm of the salt concentration, which is equivalent to the rate of change of the salt concentration, divided by the salt concentration – it is effectively one over the distance over which the concentration decreases by a factor of e. The above equation is approximate, and ...
A change in concentration over a distance is called a concentration gradient, a change in pressure over a distance is called a pressure gradient, and a change in temperature over a distance is called a temperature gradient. The word diffusion derives from the Latin word, diffundere, which means "to spread out".
In chemical physics, atomic diffusion is a diffusion process whereby the random, thermally-activated movement of atoms in a solid results in the net transport of atoms. For example, helium atoms inside a balloon can diffuse through the wall of the balloon and escape, resulting in the balloon slowly deflating.
In physics, it describes the macroscopic behavior of many micro-particles in Brownian motion, resulting from the random movements and collisions of the particles (see Fick's laws of diffusion). In mathematics, it is related to Markov processes , such as random walks , and applied in many other fields, such as materials science , information ...
Once the concentrations are equal the molecules continue to move, but since there is no concentration gradient the process of molecular diffusion has ceased and is instead governed by the process of self-diffusion, originating from the random motion of the molecules. The result of diffusion is a gradual mixing of material such that the ...
The convection–diffusion equation can be derived in a straightforward way [4] from the continuity equation, which states that the rate of change for a scalar quantity in a differential control volume is given by flow and diffusion into and out of that part of the system along with any generation or consumption inside the control volume: + =, where j is the total flux and R is a net ...
where is the diffusion coefficient and can be obtained by the Stokes-Einstein equation, and the second term is the gradient of the chemical potential with respect to position. Note that [B] refers to the average concentration of B in the solution, while [B](r) is the "local concentration" of B at position r.