PurposeThe present work explores the influence of Hall and Ohmic heating effects on the convective peristaltic flow of a conducting Jeffrey nanofluid in an inclined porous asymmetric channel with slip. Also, the authors investigated the impact of viscous dissipation, thermal radiation, heat generation/absorption and cross diffusion effects on the flow. Peristaltic flow has many industrial and physiological applications and most of the biofluids show the non-Newtonian fluid behaviour. Further, in a living body, several biofluids flow through different kinds of systems that are not symmetric, horizontal or vertical. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors considered the flow of Jeffrey fluid which is generated by a sinusoidal wave propagating on the walls of an inclined asymmetric channel. The flow model is developed from the fixed frame to the wave frame. Finally, yield the nonlinear governing equations by applying the non-dimensional quantities with the assumptions of lengthy wave and negligible Reynolds number. The exact solution has been computed for the velocity and pressure gradient. The solutions for temperature and concentration are obtained by the regular perturbation technique.FindingsGraphical analysis is made for the present results for different values of emerging parameters and explained clearly. It is noticed that the magnetic field enriches the temperature where it drops the fluid velocity. This work describes that the temperature field is decreasing due to the radiation but it is a rising function of temperature slip parameter. The temperature profile declines for growing values of the Hall parameter. The flow velocity diminishes for boosting values of the Darcy parameter. Further, the authors perceived that the concentration field reduces for large values of the chemical reaction parameter.Originality/valueThe authors validated and compared the results with the existing literature. This investigation will help to study some physiological systems, and heat transfer in peristaltic transport plays key role in medical treatments, so we ensure that these results are applicable in medical treatments like cancer therapy, drug delivery, etc.