Random walks fractal anomalous diffusion

In the previous section we analyzed the random walk of molecules in Euclidean space and found that their mean square displacement is proportional to time, (2.5). Interestingly, this important finding is not true when diffusion is studied in fractals and disordered media. The difference arises from the fact that the nearest-neighbor sites visited by the walker are equivalent in spaces with integer dimensions but are not equivalent in fractals and disordered media. In these media the mean correlations between different steps (UjUk) are not equal to zero, in contrast to what happens in Euclidean space cf. derivation of (2.6). In reality, the anisotropic structure of fractals and disordered media makes the value of each of the correlations u-jui structurally and temporally dependent. In other words, the value of each pair u-ju-i-- depends on where the walker is at the successive times j and k, and the Brownian path on a fractal may be a fractal of a fractal [9]. Since the correlations u.juk do not average out, the final important result is (UjUk) / 0, which is the underlying cause of anomalous diffusion. In reality, the mean square displacement does not increase linearly with time in anomalous diffusion and (2.5) is no longer exact. 

In the fractal porous medium, the diffusion is anomalous because the molecules are considerably hindered in their movements, cf. e.g., Andrade et al., 1997. For example, Knudsen diffusion depends on the size of the molecule and on the adsorption fractal dimension of the catalyst surface. One way to study the anomalous diffusion is the random walk approach (Coppens and Malek, 2003). The mean square displacement of the random walker (R2) is not proportional to the diffusion time t, but rather scales in an anomalous way ... 

In the frequency domain, Jonscher s power-law wings, when evaluated by ac-conductivity measurements, sometimes reveal a dual transport mechanism with different characteristic times. In particular, they treat anomalous diffusion as a random walk in fractal geometry [31] or as a thermally activated hopping transport mechanism [37]. 

Mazo (1998) studied Taylor dispersion in fractal media and found that the proportionality constant between the spatial spreading of a solute pulse and the time depended on both the fractal dimension of the medium and the dimension of the random walk through it. In normal diffusion the average particle position is directly proportional to the time. Diffusion in fractal media is anomalous with proportional to f2/dt, where dt is the random walk dimension. 

As far as transport properties of a fractal structure are concerned, the mean square displacement (MSD) of a particle follows a power law, (r ) where r is the distance from the origin of the random walk and is known as the random walk dimension. In other words, diffusion on fractals is anomalous, see Sect. 2.3. Recall that for normal diffusion in three-dimensional space the MSD is given by (r ) = 6Dt. For fractals, dy, > 2, and the exponent of t in the MSD is smaller than 1. We introduce a dimensionless distance by dividing r by the typical diffusive... 

A general transport phenomenon in the intercalation electrode with a fractal surface under the constraint of diffusion mixed with interfadal charge transfer has been modelled by using the kinetic Monte Carlo method based upon random walk approach (Lee Pyim, 2005). Go and Pyun (Go Pyun, 2007) reviewed anomalous diffusion towards and from fractal interface. They have explained both the diffusion-controlled and non-diffusion-controlled transfer processes. For the diffusion coupled with facile charge-transfer reaction the... 

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