A review of passive and active mixing systems in microfluidic devices

Green, James; Holdo̸, A. E.; Khan, Aman U.

doi:10.1260/175095407780130544

Cited by 34 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…Their main goal is to transform the laminar into turbulent flow by altering the structure or configuration of fluid channels (passive) [22] or using external energy sources (active) [23]. Mixing is generally induced by two phenomena: diffusion [24] and chaotic advection [25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Impact of the Fabrication Method on the Performance of 3D Printed Mixers

2019

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A wide variety of 3D printing technologies have been used for the fabrication of lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices in recent years. Despite the large number of studies having examined the use of 3D printing technologies in microfluidic devices, the effect of the fabrication method on their performance has received little attention. In this paper, a comparison is shown between unibody-LOC micro-mixers, a particular type of monolithic design for 3D printed LOCs, fabricated in polyjet, stereolithography (SLA) and fused deposition modelling (FDM or FFF) platforms, paying particular attention to the inherent limitations of each fabrication platform and how these affect the performance of the manufactured devices.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Impact of the Fabrication Method on the Performance of 3D Printed Mixers

2019

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“…Although the passive mixing offers some benefits such as no external power requirements, it is not very effective in microfluidic devices because of the diffusion-based very slow mixing process. Active mixing has the potential to eliminate the inherent drawbacks of slow mixing using an acoustic, magnetic, or electrokinetic forcing [9]. Among various active micromixers (see reviews [2,5]), electrokinetic-based micromixers are preferred owing to their numerous advantages including ease of fabrication, no moving parts, ease of control, high reliability and repeatability, and quiet operation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analytical Solution of Time-Periodic Electroosmotic Flow through Cylindrical Microchannel with Non-Uniform Surface Potential

Khan

Dutta

2019

Micromachines

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Time-periodic electroosmotic flow (EOF) with heterogeneous surface charges on channel walls can potentially be used to mix species or reagent molecules in microfluidic devices. Although significant research efforts have been placed to understand different aspects of EOF, its role in the mixing process is still poorly understood, especially for non-homogeneous surface charge cases. In this work, dynamic aspects of EOF in a cylindrical capillary are analyzed for heterogeneous surface charges. Closed form analytical solutions for time-periodic EOF are obtained by solving the Navier–Stokes equation. An analytical expression of induced pressure is also obtained from the velocity field solution. The results show that several vortices can be formed inside the microchannel with sinusoidal surface charge distribution. These vortices change their pattern and direction as the electric field change its strength and direction with time. In addition, the structure and strength of the vorticity depend on the frequency of the external electric field and the size of the channel. As the electric field frequency or channel diameter increases, vortices are shifted towards the channel surface and the perturbed flow region becomes smaller, which is not desired for effective mixing. Moreover, the number of vorticities depends on the periodicity of the surface charge.

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“…In T channel large area to volume ratio gives prospect of better yield and selectivity than for conventional design, because diffusive fluxes of mass and heat transfer scales with area while source and sink are proportional to volume [10]. This configuration has been successfully applied for mixing of both gas and liquid fluids by different researchers [8,[11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%