Electrokinesis is the particle or fluid transport produced by an electric field acting on a fluid having a net mobile charge. (See -kinesis for explanation and further uses of the -kinesis suffix.)  Electrokinesis was first observed by Ferdinand Frederic Reuss during 1808, in the electrophoresis of clay particles  The effect was also noticed and publicized in the 1920s by Thomas Townsend Brown which he called the Biefeld–Brown effect, although he seems to have misidentified it as an electric field acting on gravity. The flow rate in such a mechanism is linear in the electric field. Electrokinesis is of considerable practical importance in microfluidics, because it offers a way to manipulate and convey fluids in microsystems using only electric fields, with no moving parts.
The force acting on the fluid, is given by the equation
where,  is the resulting force, measured in newtons,  is the current, measured in amperes,  is the distance between electrodes, measured in metres, and  is the ion mobility coefficient of the dielectric fluid, measured in m/(V·s).
If the electrodes are free to move within the fluid, while keeping their distance fixed from each other, then such a force will actually propel the electrodes with respect to the fluid.
Electrokinesis has also been observed in biology, where it was found to cause physical damage to neurons by inciting movement in their membranes.  It is discussed in R. J. Elul's "Fixed charge in the cell membrane" (1967).