Peculiarity of 3D flow organization in Soret driven instability (Q2466148)

The authors have studied the Soret driven instability in a binary fluid mixture, consisting of water and isopropanol. The system is heated from above while the Soret coefficient is negative. The thermodiffusion effect caused the heavier liquid to be accumulated on the top of the lighter one, and the buoyant convection is initiated after a long induction period. The column structure is diffused in the horizontal direction and the final state is always a 3D nonlinear state. The instability occurs at the critical solutal Rayleigh number Ra 16200 which is quite low as compared to the classical Ra number and it tends to zero for colloidal solutions. This means, no temperature gradient is required for the initiation of the convection, a contradictory result for which no explanation is provided in the paper.