Chemically-driven flows in active phase-separating systems*

The role of capillary forces and hydrodynamic flows in cellular organisation by liquid-liquid phase separation remains relatively unexplored. As living cells are inherently out of thermodynamic equilibrium, phase-separation phenomena inside them occur under non-equilibrium conditions. In this work, using theoretical and numerical calculations, we study phase-separating liquid mixtures that are maintained out of equilibrium through chemical reactions. We find that hydrodynamic flows generated by the active chemical reactions can lead to interesting dynamics and diverse patterns of the domains of the phase-separated liquids. In particular, for a certain range of values of the physical parameters, the patterns so formed show spatio-temporal chaos. In general, through our work, we explore the interplay of phase-separation physics, active chemical reactions and hydrodynamics, an exploration which we believe is essential for a physical understanding of intracellular organisation.