Micromixing enhancement in a novel passive mixer with symmetrical cylindrical grooves

Abstract

A passive micromixer with symmetrical cylindrical grooves along the channel was designed, fabricated and characterized. Systematic numerical simulations of mixing with Re ranging from 1.0 to 500 predict the optimized parameters and the mixing enhancement. The optimized depth of the cylindrical grooves is 100 µm. The experimental results have also confirmed the improvement of the mixing effect. Considering pressure drop and mixing enhancement, Re values of 10 and 100 are suitable for mixing of liquids with diffusion coefficients of 10−9 and 6 × 10−11 m2/s, respectively. The percentage of mixing of this micromixer is 2.22‐fold better than that of common Y‐mixer with Re of 10 at the distance of 19 mm from the meeting point of two fluids with the diffusion coefficient of 10−9 m2/s; similarly, the percentage of mixing of the new design is 2.18 times better than that of common Y‐mixer with Re of 100 at the distance of 19 mm from the meeting point of two fluids with the diffusion coefficient of 6 × 10−11 m2/s. This easy fabricated micromixer can be utilized for biological reactions and analytical assays. © 2015 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Hollow Platinum Nanospheres and Nanotubes Templated by Shear Flow-Induced Lipid Vesicles and Tubules and Their Applications on Hydrogen Evolution

“…The chip fabrication was described in details elsewhere. − In brief, SU-8 layer (MicroChem, USA) was spun onto the wafers with 100 μm in thickness subsequently followed by soft baking at 65 °C for 10 min and at 95 °C for 30 min, respectively. The wafers were then exposed to UV light (365 nm) through a Y-shape mask with a dose of 550 mJ/cm 2 , followed by a post baking at 65 °C for 1 min and 95 °C for 10 min, respectively.…”

Diffusion and convection mixing of non‐Newtonian liquids in an optimized micromixer

“…Active micromixers depend on some kind of external force or field to manipulate or control the flow and the mixing process. [11] They also increase the complexity of the system and consequently create difficulties in its operation, fabrication, and cleaning, and above all, impose high implementation costs. [7][8][9] Electrokinetic phenomena such as electroosmosis, electrophoresis, and dielectrophoresis, have attracted much interest among researchers as forces for driving the flow in biomedical microdevices.…”

“…[10] Although external forces or fields can enhance mixing and be beneficial in many of the aforementioned applications, they may be harmful to some sensitive biological samples. [11] They also increase the complexity of the system and consequently create difficulties in its operation, fabrication, and cleaning, and above all, impose high implementation costs. [12] These problems can be overcome by employing passive micromixers.…”

A novel passive micromixer with modified asymmetric lateral wall structures

“…Passive mixing behavior typically relies on diversified microchannel structural design for fluid flow guiding along the wall and distortion to obtain the desired mixing performance . Hence, the improvement and optimization of the passive micromixer structure have always been the focus of research; a variety of passive micromixers with diverse structures have been implemented …”