Impact of Soret and Dufour on bioconvective flow of nanofluid in porous square cavity

This article addresses the bioconvection in a porous cavity associated with Soret and Dufour effects. The bioconvective flow in a porous medium is based on Hillesdon and Pedley's model and is governed by nonlinear partial differential equations. These equations are transformed into a dimensionless form with suitable nondimensional parameters. The finite element method is employed to solve the dimensionless equations. The outcomes of the study are presented by streamlines, temperature distributions, isoconcentrations of solute, nanoparticles, and microorganisms. Furthermore, the tendency of average Nusselt number and average Sherwood number and the influence of Soret parameter, Dufour parameter, Peclet number, and bioconvective Rayleigh number is interpreted. Thermophoresis and Soret number show a strong effect on the concentration of nanoparticles. Brownian motion and thermophoresis exhibit a significant effect on the density distributions of microorganisms. The novelty of the paper is to combine the effects of Soret–Dufour and oxytactic bioconvection. The present study can be useful in the following applications: microbial-enhanced oil recovery, toxin removal, antibiotics, and modeling of microfluidic devices.