A discontinuous Poisson--Boltzmann equation with interfacial transfer: homogenisation and residual error estimate

Abstract

A nonlinear Poisson--Boltzmann equation with transmission boundary conditions at the interface between two materials is investigated. The model describes the electrostatic potential generated by a vector of ion concentrations in a periodic multiphase medium with dilute solid particles. The key issue is that the interfacial transfer allows jumps and thus discontinuous solutions of the problem. Based on variational techniques, we derive the homogenisation of the discontinuous problem subject to inhomogeneous transmission interface conditions. Moreover, we establish a rigorous residual error estimate up to the first order correction.