Unconditionally positivity preserving and energy dissipative schemes for Poisson--Nernst--Planck equations

Abstract: We develop a set of numerical schemes for the Poisson--Nernst--Planck equations. We prove that our schemes are mass conservative, uniquely solvable and keep positivity unconditionally. Furthermore, the first-order scheme is proven to be unconditionally energy dissipative. These properties hold for various spatial discretizations. Numerical results are presented to validate these properties. Moreover, numerical results indicate that the second-order scheme is also energy dissipative, and both the first- and second-order schemes preserve the maximum principle for cases where the equation satisfies the maximum principle.